[4] She was recognized for her mentorship of younger economists with the Carolyn Shaw Bell Award from the American Economics Association in 2015 and also participated in the founding and evaluation of the AEA’s mentoring program for junior faculty.

Currie is best known for her work on the impact of poverty and government anti-poverty policies on the health and well-being of children over their life cycle.

In work with Duncan Thomas and Eliana Garces, she showed that children in a public preschool program named Head Start made gains relative to their own siblings in terms of both test scores and longer-term measures of attainment.

[11][12] In work with Jonathan Gruber, she showed that expansions of public health insurance to low income women and children improved access to care and reduced infant mortality.

"[15][16] More recently, she has advocated for cash transfers, in conjunction with other safety net programs, given their helpfulness in raising families out of poverty.

[28][29][30] Her work showing that the adoption of EZ-Pass improved infant health in Pennsylvania and New Jersey received wide attention.

[31] Some of her work showing disparities in fetal exposure to pollution and their consequences is summarized in her 2011 Ely lecture to the American Economics Association.