Yale’s Tobin Center Welcomes Former National SNAP Director Cathy Buhrig as Senior Policy Fellow
The Tobin Center for Economic Policy at Yale University welcomes Cathy Buhrig as a Senior Policy Fellow.
Buhrig brings decades of leadership experience in public service, most recently as a senior official overseeing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Before that, she led policy for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, overseeing tens of billions of dollars in programs to support low-income Pennsylvanians.
At the Tobin Center, Buhrig will support the center’s work on the social safety net, helping connect rigorous academic research with key policies and programs that can improve the lives of millions of families.
“We are honored to welcome Cathy Buhrig to the Tobin Center,” said Executive Director David Wilkinson. “Cathy has dedicated her career to studying and managing the safety net at both the federal and state levels, ensuring programs like SNAP meet the needs of families across the country. As a distinguished policy practitioner who’s recognized for her expertise at the state and national levels, Cathy will make the center’s research and policy work on benefits more intelligent, more practical, and more effective.”
“I am so pleased to join the Tobin Center and to work alongside scholars who are committed to ensuring that research informs policy in ways that improve lives,” Buhrig said. “Programs like SNAP make a difference every day for millions of American families, and I look forward to contributing to efforts to modernize these programs in ways that strengthen and expand their impact.”
At the Tobin Center, making state safety net programs more effective
As a Senior Policy Fellow, Buhrig will work alongside our faculty, data scientists, and other experts to help research drive impact and shape government policy. Buhrig will advise our team members working on issues of state capacity around the social safety net. Her counsel will help scholars and policymakers alike grapple with how programs like SNAP can be made more effective, and how evidence from research can be translated into changes that reach families on-the-ground.
In addition to contributing to the center’s research and policy engagement, Buhrig will engage with Yale students and scholars. By sharing her experiences in state and federal government, she will help cultivate the next generation of public servants and researchers who are committed to advancing evidence-based solutions to pressing social challenges.
Modernizing SNAP–and supporting more than 40 million Americans a year
Throughout her career, Buhrig has focused on improving outcomes for households facing economic insecurity. She most recently served as Associate Administrator of SNAP within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service, where she helped guide the nation’s largest anti-hunger program. SNAP supports more than 40 million Americans each year.
In her role, Buhrig oversaw the development and implementation of policies designed to strengthen SNAP’s reach, effectiveness, and efficiency. Her work contributed to modernizing program administration, ensuring that benefits are accessible to those who need them most and improving outcomes for vulnerable populations.
Prior to her leadership at USDA, Buhrig spent nearly a decade as Policy Director for the state of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health and Human Service, including oversight of the state’s SNAP program that supports more than 3 million Pennsylvanians.
Buhrig’s career has been defined by a deep commitment to using policy as a tool for building opportunity, and her experience will be invaluable to Tobin’s ongoing work with Connecticut and other state partners.
The Tobin Center looks forward to working alongside Buhrig in this critical moment for benefits policy nationwide and welcomes her warmly to Yale University.