Sarah Serpas joined Every Texan in 2024 as a Senior Research & Data Analyst. She brings over a decade of experience in participatory urban planning, demographic research, and community engagement. She holds a deep belief that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it well enough. Sarah grew up in dusty Midland, TX, and living in such a “boom and bust” town sparked her interest in population dynamics. She left the state to live and work in New York City, where she completed her undergraduate degree at New York University and earned a master’s degree in City and Regional Planning from Pratt Institute. She returned to Texas in 2018 and is currently pursuing a PhD in Applied Demography from the University of Texas at San Antonio where she teaches occasional classes. Two of her favorite courses to teach are GIS for Urban Studies and Social Demography for Public Policy. Sarah lives in San Antonio where she enjoys making jewelry, cooking, and tackling home projects with her wife (with very little help from their cats).
Song of the year: Joyride by Ke$ha
My surprising hobby: Jewelry making and metalsmithing
Today we released a new data tool that finds that what a two-parent household with two children in Texas must earn to cover basic expenses like affordable housing, food, child
By Jeanie Donovan More than 3.5 million Texans, including nearly 2 million children, rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to ensure that they don’t go to bed hungry
Last school year Texas’ school cafeterias served an astonishing 300 million breakfasts. But remarkably, that only covered 60 percent of the students who received free or reduced price lunches during
Most of us know what poverty “looks like”—such as being homeless or hungry. But what we may not realize is that poverty is a specific income line defined by the
First Focus, a bipartisan advocacy organization that works to make children and families a priority in federal policy and budget decisions, has released a new report called Big Ideas: Children
Last week, our documentary “A Fighting Chance” aired on KLRU-Austin PBS, followed by a moving Civic Summit panel discussion about the struggles Texas families face just to meet their basic
This weekend, we contributed a piece to the Austin American-Statesman’s legislative series. You can read the full oped below, which originally ran in the Statesman on Sunday, Dec. 9: Sarah
By Andrea Mayo In 2011, nine percent of Texas teenagers age 16 to 19 were neither in school nor in the workforce. Unless Texas takes action, these young people will
By Frances Deviney Election Day pretty much feels like a day dedicated to adults. Only adults can register to vote. Only long-time adults tend to run for public office. And,
By Frances Deviney Well, Anne’s at it again! Our associate director Anne Dunkelberg has been sought out for her expertise on health policy in Texas for a new series of
