Lipscomb’s research focuses primarily on access to infrastructure services and environmental issues in developing countries. She has analyzed the impact of access to electricity on human development and poverty indicators, the impact of electricity on agricultural productivity and deforestation, the incentives to allow increased pollution or water use near downstream jurisdictional boundaries, and methods of improving the allocation of sanitation services.
Lipscomb has been principal investigator on several large randomized controlled trials in East and West Africa. She has worked on projects directly with the Senegalese agency responsible for water management (ONAS) and with the largest Ugandan electricity distribution company (UMEME). She received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2009 and served as a consultant at the World Bank and a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, she was an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame from 2009-2012 and has been an Assistant and now Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy since 2012. She was appointed Director of Batten’s Center for Social Innovation in May, 2021.