Colleen HeflinColleen Heflin is Associate Professor of Public Affairs at the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri where she is the co-Director of the Population, Education, and Health Center and the Missouri Research Data Center. Dr. Heflin received her PhD from the University of Michigan, where she was also a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow. Her research focuses on social welfare policy and the well-being of vulnerable populations, especially the causes and consequences of material hardship. Recently, Dr.Heflin’s research has examined the relationship between participation in WIC, CACFP, and NSLP on food insecurity, the timing of SNAP benefit receipt and its impact on health, how SNAP and Unemployment Insurance caseloads changed with the Great Recession, and how SNAP usage varies among categories of military personnel. In 2013, she collaborated on a SNAP Outreach Study for Feeding America. Dr. Heflin also contributes regularly to national policy discussions; she was an invited participant at the 2013 National Academies Workshop on Research Gaps and Opportunities in Child Hunger and Food Insecurity and the 2014 Congressional Briefing on the War on Poverty.