Michael C. Kimmitt is a fourth year Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. He has been lecturing in undergraduate economics for three years, and he has participated in AP comparability studies for the Education Testing Service.

Before entering graduate school, Mr. Kimmitt worked as a political consultant and did IT and quality control work for a nonprofit which serves immigrants and the indigent in Chicago. His firsthand experiences with policy and its real world results were the impetus behind his decision to join the Economics program at UH. In addition to this work on high school education, his current research centers around infant mortality in historical Hawai`i and the institutional determinants of economic growth in developing countries.

Mr. Kimmitt was the field coordinator for Howard Dean's primary candidacy in 2003 and 2004, and he continues to work quietly as a volunteer for several causes, both political and personal.

Mr. Kimmitt grew up in the Chicago suburbs. He received his BA in Political Science from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign and his MA from the University of Hawai`i at Manoa. He lives with his wife, Tamora, in the Mo`ili`ili neighborhood of Honolulu.