Nirel Jones-Mitchell is a PhD student in Social Welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), focusing on deaths of despair, particularly the rising rates of suicide and alcohol-related deaths among poor men in the South. Her research utilizes large-scale quantitative data to examine how economic and health care policies, social isolation, and evolving gender norms affect men’s mental health. Additionally, she investigates the relational spillover effects of men’s despair on their wives and girlfriends. As an AIMB Graduate Research Fellow, Jones-Mitchell is analyzing the relationship between unemployment insurance generosity and alcohol-related mortality among working-age men in the United States, with a specific focus on variations in states with stricter Medicaid work eligibility requirements. She earned a B.A. with double majors in Spanish and Government from Claremont McKenna College and a Master of Social Work from UCLA.