Eleanor Lauderback is a research associate in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute. Her research interests and background include community empowerment, food security and nutrition, and health equity. She received a BA in public health from the University of California, Berkeley, with minors in food systems and geospatial information science and technology. At Berkeley, she was a research assistant for the Centre for Girls Education in northern Nigeria, investigating empowerment processes and gender inequality.