Hello! My name is Lexin Cai (pronounced Lex-in KAI), a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Cornell University. I am a labor and public economist studying the effects of school meals and SNAP using large-scale administrative data. My dissertation research is funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, Policy Impacts at MIT, and the Cornell Department of Economics.

Prior to graduate school, I worked for five years at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a D.C.-based policy research organization focusing on policies affecting low-income families.

I am on the 2025–2026 academic job market. You can find my CV here.