people

Maeve E. Gearing

Graduate Student in Public Policy and Sulzberger Family/Dan Levitan Social Policy Graduate Research Fellow

Maeve Gearing is a doctoral student in public policy with a disciplinary focus on sociology and a policy focus on social policy. With Professor Phil Cook, she works on issues relating to vice regulation, including laws regarding drinking ages, smoking and drugs. They are currently working on a school intervention regarding truancy, and are researching the effects of truancy on dropout rates and other outcomes.

For her dissertation, Maeve is examining childhood obesity from the perspective of vice. Specifically, she is interested in the social, psychological and behavioral impacts of weight expectations and weight stigma in children, and how these effects could be better understood and applied in policy. Her dissertation includes both quantitative analysis of the effects of attitudes toward weight in children on behavior and qualitative examinations of weight expectations in overweight and obese youth.

Education:

• MA, Public Policy Duke University - 2010
• BA, Economics Wellesley College - 2005

Recent Publications

1. Maeve E. Gearing "8 years old. 200 pounds. Obese child's custody case shines spotlight on nation's failure."  December 18, 2011 [Herald Sun Op-Ed]


2. Maeve E. Gearing and Sara Benjamin Neelon "Connecting farms and our youngest children."  December 13, 2011 [connecting-farms-and-our-youngest.html#storylink=misearch]


3. Philip J. Cook and Maeve E. Gearing (2011). Minimum Legal Drinking Age: 21 as an Artifact. In David Rabiner and Helen White (Ed.).  College Drinking and Drug UseThe Duke Series in Child Develpment and Public Policy (pp. 275-293). Guilford Press.


4. Philip J. Cook and Maeve E. Gearing "The Breathalyzer Behind the Wheel."  August 30, 2009 [html]

Curriculum Vitae