Congratulations to Princeton University senior Catalina Posada, whose paper, “Criminalizing Opioid Use During Pregnancy: Impacts on All Women’s Access to Adequate Addiction Treatment,” earned her the Best Undergraduate Paper award at the 99th International Atlantic Economic Conference hosted by the International Atlantic Economic Society (IAES).

Posada is a member of the Class of 2025 majoring in Economics. She is also pursuing a minor in Global Health Policy and is a Global Health Scholar for the Center for Health and Wellbeing. This year’s conference took place over Zoom, which allowed Posada’s parents to attend and bear witness to her prestigious achievement. “I was happy to share my win with them,” Posada said after the conference, and noted that at one point a judge started his comment to her by saying “First off, good job mom and dad,” which was a very sweet moment for all of them.

To encourage undergraduate interest in economic issues, the International Atlantic Economic Society invites students to compete in the IAES Annual Best Undergraduate Paper Award (BUPA) competition. The IAES strives to recognize and reward outstanding research conducted by undergraduate students worldwide. Each year, four finalists are selected to present their research orally.

Posada’s research into the impacts of criminalizing opioid use in pregnancy on addiction treatment, and her excellent presentation at the conference, caught the attention of conference judges. In a standout moment for Posada, judges advised that part of the reason they selected her work was because of the widespread implications it has on women in the US and because it is important to highlight the sometimes forgotten effects of the opioid epidemic.

An excerpt from her paper’s abstract reads, “Garnering much attention and public health concern, the opioid epidemic has generated severe health consequences across the US. Of particular interest, opioid use during pregnancy has been criminalized by state-level and national policies to quell the rising rates of maternal addiction and neonatal abstinence syndrome. Recent research, however, has found that punitive policies (PPs) may instead exacerbate addiction by disincentivizing treatment-seeking behavior in pregnant women.”

In addition to a $1,000 prize, the first place winner receives an invitation to publish their research in the Atlantic Economic Journal. Reflecting on her win, Posada said, “I am thrilled that my work will be published in AEJ, mostly because I think it is important for economic journals to also pay attention to public health crises, especially to the opioid epidemic and its effects on women, which are not well understood and yet so many policies are passed regarding this.”

The three other students named as finalists in the competition were Karleighana Jones of The University of Akron, Maksim Likho of the University of Richmond, and Stuti Saria of Stanford University & New York University.

To learn more about the winners and their papers, read the prize announcement on the IAES website.