Working with Professors Ethan Lewis and Elizabeth Cascio. Aryen Shrestha’s research examines the long-term consequences of U.S. immigration policy, focusing on the introduction of quotas on Latin American immigrants in 1965 and the subsequent rise in unauthorized migration. By linking administrative records with health, education, and earnings data, Shrestha studies how parents’ unauthorized status affected the life outcomes of their U.S.-born children, from birth through adulthood. Under the supervision of Professors Ethan Lewis and Elizabeth Cascio, this work addresses a critical question at the intersection of economic security and social policy: how legal status constraints imposed by immigration policy reverberate across generations and shape the economic well-being of U.S. citizens.
Aryen graduated from Amherst College in 2024, majoring in Economics, and was born and raised in Kathmandu, Nepal.
