A Harvard University professor and former government official is speaking at the University of Michigan about poverty in the United States and around the world.

Mary Jo Bane was scheduled to speak Thursday at the Ann Arbor university's School of Social Work on "Addressing Poverty in Troubled Times: U.S., North America and the World."

Bane is the Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass.

She earlier served as assistant secretary for children and families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and commissioner of the New York State Department of Social Services.