Riley Acton is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Bowdoin College.

She is an applied microeconomist whose research focuses on the economics of education, with related interests in labor, public, and health economics. Broadly, her scholarship examines how students, families, and institutions make decisions about education, how those decisions interact with public policy, and what they mean for inequality and economic mobility. Her work has been published in scholarly outlets such as the Journal of Labor Economics, the Journal of Human Resources, and the Economics of Education Review, and has received funding from the National Science Foundation and a variety of philanthropic organizations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and J-PAL North America.

Prior to joining the Bowdoin faculty, Riley was the Frank H. Jellinek Jr. Endowed Assistant Professor of Economics in the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. She received her bachelor's degree in Economics and Mathematics from Ursinus College in 2015, her Ph.D. in Economics from Michigan State University in 2020, and joined IZA as a Research Affiliate in October 2021.