Who I am: I am a Visiting Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an Associate Professor of Applied Psychology and Economics (with tenure) at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.

I hold a doctorate in Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education (with a concentration in economics) from Harvard University, where I was a fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy; a master’s in Educational Research from the University of Cambridge, where I was a Gates Scholar; and a bachelor’s in International Politics from Georgetown University. I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).

What I do: My work seeks to address one of the most pressing challenges for LMICs: how to transition from providing schooling to learning for all. These countries expanded access to education faster than even their high-income counterparts. Yet, schools are struggling to meet the needs of the millions of children who became the first in their families to enroll in formal education.

My career goal is to help school systems in these contexts ensure that these “first-generation learners” develop the requisite academic and social-emotional skills to participate in the economy and society. I pursue this goal by combining cutting-edge experimental designs from economics, to evaluate the causal effect of policies and programs in the field at scale, with innovative measures of constructs in education and psychology, to advance our understanding of key outcomes and mechanisms. Specifically, I am interested in:

• preparing children and youths for each education level;

• supporting teachers in large classes that vary widely in their achievement; and

• encouraging principals to allocate resources to students who need them most.

My research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the World Bank Economic Review, the Review of Educational Research, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, and the Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, among others.

How I work: I conduct all my studies in partnership with governments and non-profits seeking to launch, expand, or modify initiatives that affect large numbers of students—mostly, in Latin America (where I am from) and South Asia (where I did my postdoctoral work).

In recognition of my expertise, I was selected as a National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow; an Advisory-Board member at the Organization of Ibero-American States for Education, Science, and Culture (OEI); a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution; an Invited Researcher at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT; a Member of the CESifo Network on Economics of Education; and a Faculty Affiliate at the Center for International Development at Harvard and Global Action for Policy at Northeastern.

I have consulted for multiple international organizations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and Innovations for Poverty Action, among others.

Curriculum vitae

Google Scholar profile

NYU-Steinhardt profile

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