RISE Annual Conference 2021

Might K. Abreh (Institute for Educational Planning and Administration, University of Cape Coast)

Might Kojo Abreh is a Non-Resident Fellow at Centre for Global Development (CGD); and a Senior Research Fellow and Head of Grants and Consultancy, Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA), University of Cape Coast (UCC). As a UNESCO Category II institute specialises in Educational Planning for the West African sub-region. Might's research interest includes education, school and learning improvement, education sector-wide needs assessment, as well as policy planning, preparation, and implementation.

So Yoon Ahn (University of Illinois at Chicago)

So Yoon Ahn is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her primary research interests include family economics, gender economics, labour economics, and development economics. She is interested in how households make decisions in different contexts. Her current work focuses on the impacts of cross-border marriages on marriage markets and households. She is also interested in how to reshape gender norms in developing countries.

Julius Atuhurra (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; Twaweza East Africa)

Julius Atuhurra is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a Programme Officer on the “What Works in Education” project with Twaweza East Africa. His research focuses on educational development and learning profiles in developing countries.

Abu Siddique (Technical University of Munich)

Abu Siddique is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Economics at the Technical University of Munich (Germany). He holds a PhD in Economics and a MSc in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Southampton (UK). His main research interest lies in the field of development economics. He is currently working on ethnic discrimination, mental health, preference formation, and the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic in developing countries.

Rukmini Banerji (RISE, Pratham)

Rukmini Banerji is a member of the RISE Intellectual Leadership Team and CEO of Pratham Education Foundation. She completed her BA at St. Stephen’s College and attended the Delhi School of Economics (DSE). She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and earned her PhD at the University of Chicago. She joined Pratham in 1996 as part of the leadership team. There, she led the organisation’s research and assessment efforts, which have included the internationally acknowledged Annual Status of Education Report (ASER). She served as director of the ASER Centre in New Delhi for 10 years.

Masooda Bano (RISE, University of Oxford)

Masooda Bano is the Research Lead for the RISE Political Economy (Implementation) team. She is a Professor of Development Studies at the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford. Her primary area of interest is in studying the role of ideas and beliefs in development processes and their evolution and change.

Amanda Beatty (RISE, Mathematica Policy Research)

Amanda Beatty is an International Consultant on the RISE Indonesia team. She is a Senior Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. Before joining Mathematica in 2012, she was an education economist with the World Bank in Indonesia, where she led randomised evaluations of nationwide government programmes, including a nationwide initiative to upgrade teacher qualifications at the primary and secondary levels; early childhood service expansion to poor communities; and efforts to enhance the effectiveness of school committees and school management through community engagement.

Sabrin Beg (University of Delaware)

Sabrin Beg is an Assistant Professor in the Alfred Lerner College of Business & Economics at the University of Delaware. She has a PhD in Economics from Yale University, with a primary area of expertise in development, economic history, political economy, and applied microeconomics. She is currently working on projects in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana, and India.

Jacobus Cilliers (RISE, Georgetown University)

Jacobus Cilliers is researcher on the RISE Tanzania team and an Assistant Teaching Professor at Georgetown's McCourt School of Public Policy. Prior to joining McCourt, he worked for the Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund at the World Bank and was also a visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford. His research is in the area of applied micro-econometrics for development, with a focus on basic education service delivery.

Lee Crawfurd (Center for Global Development)

Lee Crawfurd is a Research Fellow with CGD’s global education team. Previously he was an economist and advisor with the governments of Rwanda, South Sudan, and the UK. He has also worked as a consultant for international organisations and NGOs including the World Bank, AfDB, and ADB. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Sussex and has studied at the University of Oxford and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

Luis Crouch (RISE, RTI international)

Luis Crouch is the Senior Economist at RTI’s International Development Group and a member of the RISE Research Directorate. He specialises in education policy, decentralised finance (e.g., funding formulas), political economy of reform, education statistics, planning, and projections. He has experience in all key areas of education data analysis, from the generation of primary data via surveys and citizen input, to statistical and econometric analysis, to evidence-based, Cabinet-level policy dialogue.

Jishnu Das (RISE, Georgetown University)

Jishnu Das is a Principal Investigator on the RISE Pakistan team and a Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His work focuses on health and education in low- and middle-income countries, with an emphasis on social markets, or common, but complex, conflagrations of public and private education and health providers operating in a small geographical space. He was previously a Lead Economist at the World Bank’s Development Research Group, where his research focused on the delivery of quality education and health services.

Sandip Datta (Delhi School of Economics)

Sandip Datta is an Assistant Professor in the Delhi School of Economics at the University of Delhi. His research interests lie in the economics of education, health, politics, development, and labour. He graduated with a PhD in Economics from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, India.

Joost de Laat (Utrecht University)

Joost de Laat is an economics Professor at Utrecht University. He is an applied micro-economist interested in understanding the drivers of inequality and the policy (and behavioural options) to address inequalities in low- and middle-income countries. His work straddles research, policy, and teaching. He is currently the Chair of Global Economic Challenges at the Utrecht School of Economics and Director of the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges.

Alex Eble (Columbia University)

Alex Eble is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Education at Columbia University's Graduate School of Education, Teachers College. He works in the fields of development and applied microeconomics with a focus on the economics of education in the developing world. He is also affiliated with the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, IZA Institute of Labor Economics, and Effective Intervention at LSE’s Centre for Economic Performance.

Yue-Yi Hwa (RISE; Bavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)

Yue-Yi Hwa is a RISE Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, focusing on teachers and management. She received her PhD in education from the University of Cambridge. Her Ph.D. thesis looked at the relationship between teacher accountability policy and socio-cultural context across countries, using secondary survey data on education and culture alongside interviews with teachers in Finland and Singapore. Previously, Yue-Yi taught secondary school English for two years through Teach For Malaysia, and was a Research Fellow for the Penang Institute in Kuala Lumpur.

Naureen Karachiwalla (International Food Policy Research Institute)

Naureen Karachiwalla is a Research Fellow in the Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division (PHND) of IFPRI and is a non-resident Fellow at the Consortium for Development Policy Research (CDPR). She uses experimental and quasi-experimental methods to examine how policy design can improve public service delivery and reduce poverty. She studies how governments can improve their own service delivery and how they can leverage the private sector to improve overall service delivery. She has studied these issues in the context of education, social protection, and agriculture.

Geeta Kingdon (RISE, University College London)

Geeta Gandhi Kingdon is professor at the UCL Institute of Education, where she holds the Chair of Education and International Development.  Prior to this, she worked for 10 years at the Department of Economics, University of Oxford. Her research interests are in economics of education in developing countries. She has investigated school effectiveness, gender in education, labour market outcomes of education, and the political economy of education.

Sonya Krutikova (RISE, Institute for Fiscal Studies)

Sonya Krutikova is a researcher on the RISE Vietnam team. She is the Programme Director of the Centre for the Evaluation of Development Policies (EDePo) at the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and Research Associate at the Department of International Development (ODID), University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the determinants of skill acquisition among children and young people living in poverty, as well as more broadly the mechanisms through which childhood conditions manifest in child development and outcomes.

Clare Leaver (RISE; Bavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)

Clare Leaver is the RISE Research Coordinator, an associate professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, and a Fellow of University College. Much of Clare’s research focuses on careers and incentives within the public sector. In current work, she is examining the effectiveness of alternative approaches to service delivery in fragile settings, focusing on how best to incorporate contributions from non-state providers while allowing the state to retain and strengthen its stewardship.

Renata Lemos (RISE, World Bank)

Renata Lemos is a RISE Fellow and a senior economist at the World Bank Education Global Practice. Her current work focuses on providing research-driven policy advice and support on public sector management to governments in Latin American countries. More broadly, her interests include topics in the intersection of managerial and organizational economics and development economics.

Jonathan London (RISE, Leiden University)

Jonathan D. London is a researcher on the RISE Vietnam team and an Associate Professor of global political economy at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He has previously held positions at the City University of Hong Kong and Nanyang Technological University. His research interests span the fields of comparative political economy, development studies, and the political economy of welfare and stratification.

Takao Maruyama (Hiroshima University)

Takao Maruyama is an Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Hiroshima University in Japan. His research focuses on the impacts of aid for educational development and how aid agencies can effectively utilise evidence for improving and scaling up operations.

Moitshepi Matsheng (Young 1ove)

Moitshepi Matsheng is a social innovator focused on designing sustainable solutions for youth development. She is a Co–founder of Young 1ove and currently serves as the organisation’s Country Coordinator. She was recognised by former Botswana President Festus Mogae as a pioneer of the Champions For an AIDS Free Generation. Her work with Young 1ove also earned her recognition as one of 60 young people from across the Commonwealth to receive the prestigious Queen's Young Leaders Award for exceptional youth making an impact in their communities.

Tina Musoke (Consultant)

Tina Musoke is a global communications and public relations consultant. She has over 20 years of experience in strategic communications and global issues-based, social impact campaigns. She has implemented effective communication strategies on a range of global and local issues including health, education, climate change, behaviour change, poverty, and inequalities-- in over 80 different countries.

Nozomi Nakajima (Harvard University)

Nozomi Nakajima is a Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy & Program Evaluation at Harvard University. Her research focuses on improving evidence-based decision-making in education for families, schools, and policymakers. She is also a Stone Ph.D. Scholar in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality & Social Policy and a graduate student affiliate at the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

Vesall Nourani (University of Chicago)

Vesall Nourani is a development economist whose research focuses on the role of knowledge and learning in economic activity across sub-Saharan Africa. He is a Senior Research Associate in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is also a Director at the Development Innovations Lab at the University of Chicago and holds academic affiliations at Makerere University in Uganda (visiting lecturer) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (research collaborator).

Gábor Nyéki (African School of Economics)

Gábor Nyéki  is a member of the RISE Tanzania research team, a recurring visiting scholar at Princeton University’s politics department, and an assistant professor at the African School of Economics. His research focuses on political economy, development economics, the economics of social networks, and unequal societies.

Devyani Pershad (Pratham)

Devyani Pershad is the Head of Pratham’s International Collaborations unit. She leads technical strategy and approach, and manages partner relationships across several TaRL Africa countries. She is also responsible for building donor relationships and grant management. She further provides strategic oversight for TaRL in Côte d’Ivoire.

Caine Rolleston (University College London)

Caine Rolleston is a member of the RISE Intellectual Leadership Team, a member of the RISE Ethiopia team, and a member of the RISE Vietnam team. He is a Senior Lecturer in Education and International Development at University College London Institute of Education (UCL-IOE). He has worked on education and international development in a range of countries including Ghana, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Peru, India and Sri Lanka.

Andrew Rosser (RISE, University of Melbourne)

Andrew Rosser is an International Consultant on the RISE Indonesia team. He is a Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne, based in the Asia Research Centre. His research is focused on analysing the politics of economic liberalisation in Indonesia during the New Order and early post-New Order periods and the causes and consequences of the 1997-1998 Asian economic crisis.

Shwetlena Sabarwal (RISE, World Bank)

Shwetlena Sabarwal is a researcher on the RISE Tanzania team and a Senior Economist at the World Bank. She is a principal author for World Bank’s World Development Report 2019 on the ‘Changing Nature of Work’ and World Development Report 2018 on ‘Learning to Realize Education’s Promise’. She is a core team member for World Bank’s ‘Human Capital Index’ and has led World Bank’s education engagement in Tanzania, Bangladesh, and Nepal.

Sehar Saeed (Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, ASER Pakistan)

Sehar Saeed has been working in the field of education for the last eight years. She is a project management and implementation specialist, a passionate advocate of providing access to quality education systems for all children. She is presently working as Deputy Director Research at ITA, a leading NGO, and oversees large scale surveys, service delivery programmes, and impact evaluations, etc. As part of a geographically widespread portfolio, her work extends beyond research into policy and implementation in the field.

Pieter Serneels (RISE, University of East Anglia)

Pieter Serneels is a RISE Fellow and a Professor of Economics at the University of East Anglia. His research focuses on human capital, behavioural economics, and political economy in low- and middle-income countries. He provides research advice to the RISE Programme and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as their Economics Senior Research Fellow. He is an executive member of CBESS, Research Fellow at the IZA, EUDN and EGAP, and Research Associate at CSAE.

Jason Silberstein (RISE; Bavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford)

Jason Silberstein is a Research Fellow for RISE at the Blavatnik School of Government. His research explores the relationship between schools and the communities they serve. Before joining RISE, he worked as a consultant to the governments of Ethiopia and Ghana on reforms aimed at strengthening accountability in their education systems, and spent 18 months as a policy advisor in the Myanmar Ministry of Education.

Abhijeet Singh (Stockholm School of Economics)

Abhijeet Singh is a Principal Investigator on the RISE India team and an Associate Professor of Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). His research focuses on the analysis of education systems and interventions in developing countries and has been published in leading journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of the European Economic Association, and the Journal of Development Economics.

Gabriela Smarrelli (University of Oxford)

Gabriela Smarrelli is a PhD Candidate at the Department of International Development at Oxford University. Her primary research fields are development economics, economics of education, and public administration. She uses applied microeconomics and econometrics to explore and understand what works, when, and how, with the aim of informing the design and implementation of public policy.

Nic Spaull (RISE, Stellenbosch University)

Nic Spaull is a RISE Fellow and Associate Professor of Economics in the Economics Department at Stellenbosch University. His research centres on education policy in South Africa with a focus on inequality and early grade literacy and numeracy. In 2020, Nic initiated the National Income Dynamics Study Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM), a nationwide consortium of more than 30 researchers from six universities, to measure the impact of COVID-19 in South Africa. He also founded "Funda Wande: Reading for Meaning" an influential non-profit organisation focusing on early grade reading and mathematics.

Marla Spivack (RISE; Center for International Development, Harvard University)

Marla Spivack is the Research Manager of RISE and a Research Fellow on the Building State Capability programme at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. She leads an array of research activities focused on synthesising the findings of RISE country team work. Prior to joining RISE, she worked on social protection, rural development, and micro-credit programmes with government agencies and the World Bank in a range of contexts.

Dawit Tibebu Tiruneh (RISE, Cambridge University)

Dawit Tibebu Tiruneh is a researcher on the RISE Ethiopia team. He is a Research Associate at the Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. His work mainly involves the quantitative aspect of the research and development and validation of instruments. His research interests include the design, development and evaluation of instructional interventions for higher-order thinking skills; development and validation of research instruments; and general education in Ethiopia.

Leonard Wantchekon (RISE, Princeton University, African School of Economics)

Leonard Wantchekon is Principal Investigator for the RISE Nigeria team and a professor of politics and associated faculty in economics at Princeton University. He has research interests in the economics of education, clientelism and redistributive politics, the resource curse, and the long-term social impact of historical events. He founded the Institute for Empirical Research in Political Economy and the African School of Economics (ASE) in Benin in January 2004 and September 2014, respectively.

Gabrielle Wills (Stellenbosch University)

Gabrielle Wills is an education economist and researcher with Research on Socio-Economic Policy, in the Department of Economics at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She has been involved in various research projects and capacity development initiatives for local and international organisations, including the South African Presidency, the South African Department of Basic Education, the Ministry of Education in Namibia, UNICEF and local philanthropy organisations.