Irene completed her PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2020, where she concentrated in environmental economics. Her work explores the causes and consequences of environmental inequality, and in particular the role of air pollution as a frequent correlate of other forms of placed-based disadvantage. Her focus on the developmental effects of exposure to airborne toxic releases in early childhood is motivated by evidence that the very first years of life are a critical period for development, and correspondingly for policy interventions that mitigate the effects of environmental harm. She also studies the firm side of environmental justice, aiming to understand more directly the role of firm behavior in the generation of spatial inequities in pollution exposure.