Arabella Velleux is a PhD student in Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, specializing in quantitative public policy analysis, public health, and criminal justice. Her research focuses on how structural conditions, such as policing practices, environmental policy, and access to resources, shape violence, mortality, and life expectancy among marginalized communities, with particular attention to Indigenous and formerly incarcerated populations.
Arabella holds a B.S. in Mathematics from Augsburg University, where she conducted funded research in econometrics and data science, including analyses of sports economics, broadband access on tribal lands, and disaster preparedness. She has additional research experience through the National Science Foundation’s Sustainable Land and Water Resources REU and has presented her work at national conferences. Her current projects include descriptive and causal analyses of racial disparities in drowning mortality and policy evaluations of extractive industries near tribal lands.
Alongside her academic work, Arabella is deeply engaged in community-based practice. She has worked in adult detention facilities, halfway houses, and community justice settings, and currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at Red Lake Nation College, teaching mathematics and supporting Indigenous students’ educational pathways. She is also active in local community programming in the Twin Cities.
Arabella’s work is grounded in a commitment to methodological rigor, critical perspectives on positivism, and the use of empirical research to inform equitable and accountable public policy.