Hyein is a research scientist in the Economics, Justice & Society department at NORC at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on labor and public economics, with a special interest in labor supply, health outcomes, and the well-being of children and families. She has expertise in quantitative methods for conducting research in these areas. She also brings experience working with various datasets, including cross-sectional and longitudinal data, as well as survey and administrative data.

Prior to joining NORC, Hyein served as a researcher at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, a research institution focusing on child welfare and public service systems. At Chapin Hall, she contributed to developing a tool for Estimates of Local Population Eligible for Programs (ELPEP) for near-present conditions in small geographies. Using ELPEP, she estimated the counts of children eligible for childcare subsidies funded by the federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) for Illinois and Maine. Additionally, she worked on the Research on Early Care and Education Integrated Program Takeup (RECEIPT) project by linking the eligibility estimates produced using ELPEP and the program administrative data to analyze take-up rates of Illinois CCAP. Hyein also used her skill set to study Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) participation patterns as part of the TANF Employment Project and worked with Illinois unemployment insurance quarterly wage data to understand employment dynamics of early childhood education workforce as part of the Building and Sustaining the Child Care and Early Education Workforce (BASE) project.

Before Chapin Hall, Hyein was a graduate research fellow at the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research, where she conducted research on poverty, inequality, and the social safety net.