Patrick
Cooney
Assistant Director of Economic Mobility at Poverty Solutions
Partnership on Economic Mobility between the University of Michigan and the City of Detroit
Bio
Patrick Cooney is the Assistant Director of Economic Mobility at Poverty Solutions, overseeing the Partnership on Economic Mobility between the University of Michigan and the City of Detroit. In this role, he manages a number of action-oriented research projects between U of M and the City, and fosters new opportunities to deploy U of M resources to help inform, enhance, and evaluate the City’s efforts to promote economic mobility and alleviate poverty. Prior to joining Poverty Solutions, Patrick worked as a policy associate at Michigan Future, Inc. (MFI), a Michigan-based think tank, contributing research, policy analysis, and writing to MFI projects, focused on influencing state economic and education policies. At MFI, Patrick also managed the college success program for the Michigan Future Schools initiative, which funded and supported new college-prep high schools in Detroit. Patrick has also been a middle-school math teacher in Brooklyn, NY and the Rio Grande Valley, TX. He has a bachelor’s degree in economics and history from Boston College, and a master’s in public policy from the University of Michigan.