Dr. Mina Kim is a Research Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where she supports the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions program. Previously she supported the Office of Prices and Living Conditions program. She is also a board member of the National Economic Education Delegation,

which seeks to engage Ph.D. economists in helping to improve economic literacy for all, and a Research Associate at the Globalization Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and her B.A. from Swarthmore College. Her research interests generally center on the effects of globalization on firms. Most recently she has been looking at the impact of import competition on the organization of firms. Other research interests include automation and the changing nature of work. Given her position, she has extensive experience working with both administrative data and “big” data.

Dr. Alakshendra is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. He also directs the Center for International Design and Planning at the University of Florida. Dr. Alakshendra's research interests are mainly focused on the areas of urbanization, international development, and applied microeconomics in Southeast Asia. He is a trained Development Economist who uses cutting-edge empirical research methods to understand complex socio-economic problems.   

He is a recipient of many prestigious research grants including UKAID, Land and Housing Institute, Korea, and Florida Department of Transportation.  His recent work in India has focused on issues of local economic development such as industrialization, market accessibility, and evaluation of incentive structures. He has also worked on issues of informal settlements in Bihar, particularly looking at the slum policy, the impact of eviction, and willingness to pay of slum dwellers to decent rehabilitation outcomes.   

He has chaired more than 15 Master’s and Ph.D. committees and has served in more than 40 committees as Co-Chair and member. His students have benefitted from his international outlook and connections. His commitment and extensive international connections have immensely contributed to the internationalization of the Department and the University of Florida. 

Dr. Bonnie Keeler is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Dr. Keeler has expertise in integrated assessment modeling, benefit cost analysis, water and agriculture policy, non-market valuation, and environmental justice. She integrates quantitative modeling, economic valuation, and spatial analyses with qualitative and participatory approaches to capture multiple perspectives on complex social and environmental problems. Current projects include investigating the effects of climate change on water resources, environmental justice implications of nature-based solutions, governance dimensions of state and tribal groundwater management, and quantification of the social costs of water pollution.

Keeler is the Co-Director of the CREATE Initiative, a community-engaged research project that aims to leverage the resources of the research university in service to the needs and priorities of environmental justice organizations in urban watersheds. Keeler is a Co-Investigator of the Minneapolis-St.Paul Urban Long-Term Ecological Research site where she oversees research on contemporary and historical dynamics of green infrastructure investments and wealth distribution. Keeler also directs the Beyond the Academy network - a coalition of university leaders seeking to reform academic models to promote actionable, engaged scholarship on sustainability.

Dr. Brian Kovak is an Associate Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan in 2010 and his research focuses on the labor market impacts of international trade, migration, and technological change. His research has been published in journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, and Demography. Prof. Kovak is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a Research Fellow of IZA. His research has been covered by various media outlets including the Atlantic, Financial Times, LA Times, Slate, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2019 he was awarded a Carnegie Fellowship, and in 2014 he received the IZA Young Labor Economist Award for the best peer-reviewed journal publication in labor economics by authors under age 40.

Erin Troland is a Senior Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. She works on public and regional economics. Her research projects cover topics in health care, climate transition, and local public finance, focusing on the Appalachian region of the United States. At the Federal Reserve Board, she leads work on economic conditions across different geographies in the U.S. and rental housing. She previously worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and earned her Ph.D. from UC San Diego and her B.A. from the University of Kentucky.

Dr. Ceren Baysan is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Essex and an affiliate of the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). She is a political and development economist. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the International Crisis Group, and Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. In 2018, Ceren received a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving her BCom from McGill University, she worked as a research associate at the Centre for Microfinance in Chennai and Thanjavur, India. Ceren goes by she or they.

Dr. Christopher Campos is a labor economist currently focusing on the economics of education. Before pursuing higher education, he served in the United States Marine Corps and served tours in Iraq and Southeast Asia. He received his PhD in Economics from UC Berkeley and will join the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business as an Assistant Professor in 2022 after spending one year as an Industrial Relations Section Fellow at Princeton University.

Dr. Anya Kleymenova is a Senior Economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She has expertise in the areas of information economics and financial and disclosure regulation. Her research focuses on financial institutions, liquidity, disclosure, and real effects of regulatory changes. Anya received her Ph.D. from London Business School in 2014. She also has an undergraduate degree in finance from Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business, an MSc in economics from the London School of Economics, and an MSc in finance and MRes in accounting from London Business School. Anya was a Principal in the financial economics group of Charles River Associates in London, U.K. before her doctoral studies and a visiting researcher at the Bank of England during the last two years of her Ph.D. Prior to joining the Board, Anya was an assistant professor of accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. She is originally from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and enjoys classical music and ballet.

Dr. Edward C. Norton is a Professor in both the Department of Health Management and Policy and in the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan and a member of the Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. In addition to his affiliations with the University of Michigan, Dr. Norton is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

His research interests in health economics include long-term care and aging, pay-for-performance, and econometrics. He was the Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan. In 2003, before coming to Michigan, he taught at UNC at Chapel Hill and at Harvard Medical School. In 2018, the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan awarded him the Excellence in Research Award.

Dr. Elaine Hill is an Associate Professor of Health Economics in the Department of Public Health Sciences, Department of Economics, and Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at the University of Rochester. Dr. Elaine Hill leads the Health and Environmental Economics Lab, which carries out diverse research related to health and environmental economics. Dr. Hill’s research focuses on the intersection between health, health policy, the environment, and human capital formation, with an emphasis on the effect of environmental exposures on health and translating research findings into effective policy. The unifying theme within these broad areas is the use of quasi-experimental designs to identify modifiable factors that are policy-relevant and promote healthy communities.

She is passionate about mentoring the next generation of economists. Dr. Hill is a recipient of the NIH Director's Early Independence Award. She is also affiliated with Wilmot Cancer Institute, the Goergen Institute for Data Science, the Environmental Health Sciences Center, and maintains courtesy faculty positions at external institutions. Dr. Hill received her BA in Economics and Mathematics at Oberlin College in 2005 and her PhD in Applied Economics from Cornell University in 2014.

Dr. Guanyi Yang is an Assistant Professor at the Economics and Business department at Colorado College. He is a macroeconomist with research interests on topics related to inequality and the labor market. His current research focuses on two areas: (i) how labor market frictions amplify welfare loss during a recession and delay economic recovery. The frictions in his work come from job nature, such as differences between formal and informal jobs, temporary and regular contracts, and racial discrimination in job finding and separation. (ii) how factors change a person’s risk tolerance and affordability to various education and career choices, widening income and wealth inequalities over time. The factors he studies include childhood family structure and parental care, early adulthood family wealth, and marriage and fertility. Dr. Yang received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Ohio State University in 2018 and B.A. in Mathematics and Economics (with honor) from Ohio Wesleyan University in 2013. Before joining CC, he was an assistant professor of economics on the tenure track at St. Lawrence University. Dr. Yang grew up in a small mining town in central China and is a first-generation immigrant to the U.S. He is also a first-generation college graduate.

Dr. Kehinde Ajayi is an Economist in the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab, where she leads research initiatives on women’s economic empowerment, youth employment, and social protection. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Economics at Boston University, a Faculty Research Fellow of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a Fulbright Fellow. Kehinde holds a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in Economics from Stanford University.

Dr. Cleo Rose-Innes is a Development Finance expert based in Washington DC. She is currently working in the Thought Leadership team of the International Finance Corporation (IFC). She served as Senior Advisor in the office representing Angola, Nigeria and South Africa on the Board of the World Bank from September 2015 to January 2019. She advised successive Executive Directors on the Board on World Bank on issues of financial and operational oversight, with a special focus on risk. Before moving to Washington, she worked in the International Relations and Economic Policy Division of the National Treasury of South Africa. In that role she briefed successive Ministers of Finance on issues of international political economy and financial relations specific to MDBs and later meetings of G20 and BRICS Ministers and Heads of State. She worked extensively in Africa and visited most G20 countries in this role. She has an MSc in Finance for Development and a PhD in Economics from London University (SOAS). Her research interests include the alignment of public and private interests in economic development and its implications for the evolution of institutions and economic governance.

Dr. Martin Gaynor is the E.J. Barone University Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University and was Director of the Bureau of Economics at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2013-2014. He is one of the founders of the Health Care Cost Institute, an independent non-partisan nonprofit dedicated to advancing knowledge about U.S. health care spending, and served as the first Chair of its governing board. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and of the National Academy of Social Insurance, President of the American Society of Health Economists, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and an International Research Fellow at the University of Bristol.

His research focuses on competition and antitrust policy, both in health care markets, and more generally. He has written extensively on this topic, testified before Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, and advised the governments of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and South Africa on competition issues. Gaynor is on the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council and co-chaired the state’s workgroup on shoppable care. He is a mentor for the Research in Color Foundation.

Dr. Melanie Morten is an Associate Professor of Economics at Stanford University, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). Her work explores the economic effects of migration in migrants’ places of origin, in the destinations to which they arrive, and on the overall economy. She also explores the determinants of migration. Melanie holds a PhD in Economics from Yale University and Bachelors of Communication (hons) from the University of Auckland. Her research has been supported by several grants, including an NSF CAREER award and a Sloan Fellowship.

Dr. Oyakhi Ibhagui is a strategist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) working in the area of fixed income, derivatives, and cross-asset strategies. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of academics and professionals. In pursuance of this passion, he is currently a graduate school prep mentor at MT Scholarship, and an active senior research fellow at Baum Tenpers where he mentors upcoming research students, coordinates a team of volunteers that teach Ph.D. prep courses, and sources funds to finance students’ graduate school application fees and standardized tests.

Oyakhi holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Kent. He is an amateur actor and a table tennis player. In 2010, he won the AIMS Table Tennis Championship in Cape Town (gold in both singles and doubles) and has featured in several on stage plays, mostly in the UK. He also does research as a hobby and has published in professional and academic journals on topics in macro finance, international finance, and financial markets. His website is https://sites.google.com/view/oyakhilomeibhagui/home

Dr. Prachi Jain is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Loyola Marymount University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, her B.A. from UC Berkeley, and was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University before joining Loyola Marymount University. Her research is at the intersection of experimental economics, behavioral economics, and often economic development. She has used experimental methods to study topics related to informal risk sharing, social preferences, stress, and gender.

Dr. Daniel Prinz is a Research Economist and Country Programme Manager at the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Centre for Tax Analysis in Developing Countries. His research covers topics in public finance, including social insurance, taxation, and inequality. In his policy work, he collaborates with policymakers in Ethiopia on technical assistance and capacity building projects to improve the country’s tax policies. He grew up in Budapest, and has lived in rural Wales, Rhode Island and Massachusetts before moving to London.

Dr. Robert Garlick is an assistant professor of economics at Duke University and an affiliate at J-PAL. He studies education and labour markets in developing economies. His current research focuses mainly on two areas: frictions in urban labour markets that distort job search and hiring decisions, and the determinants of and returns to human capital investment decisions. Garlick holds a PhD in economics and public policy from the University of Michigan and previously studied at the University of Cape Town.

Dr. Sandile Hlatshwayo is an Economist at the International Monetary Fund where she helps evaluate risks across the Fund’s 190 member countries through crisis prediction modeling, text-based analytics, and strategic foresight activities (e.g., wargaming). Her primary research interest is quantifying the domestic and international consequences of policy uncertainty through the use of machine-learning and natural language processing techniques. She also has previously engaged in country-specific policy work on South Africa, Madagascar, and Fiji.

Outside of her professional obligations, she mentors, advises universities on pipeline programs, sits on the board of Black Professionals in International Affairs, and serves on the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked in the private sector at Procter & Gamble in South Africa. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), a master’s in policy studies from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Political Science from Spelman College.

Dr. Sarah Jacobson is an Associate Professor of Economics at Williams College. She completed her PhD in Economics at Georgia State University and her Bachelor of Science in Engineering at Harvey Mudd College. She is an environmental and behavioral economist who studies environmental regulations and interactions between preferences and institutions. Her work uses laboratory experiments, applied theory, and observational data. Themes in her research include regulatory incentive structures, punishment, deterrence, charity donations, reciprocity, rationality errors, and situations in which social preferences yield inefficient outcomes. She also designs games for teaching topics in environmental economics. Sarah engages extensively with efforts to promote diversity, inclusion, and equity in the economics profession through initiatives within Williams and in economics more broadly. She also does some writing and speaking on inclusion and on professional development.

Dr. Simon Firestone is an Economist at Meta. Prior to this, he was a Principal Economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for eleven years. He started out in Consumer and Community Affairs, working on enforcing Fair Lending regulations in mortgage markets. He then switched to Supervision and Regulation, where he worked for years on Basel capital requirements and stress tests in both business and consumer credit markets. His latest role involved working on the evaluation of policy effectiveness in banking regulation. Economics is a second career for Simon, having started his professional life as an urban planner, working in New York City government in various roles. Aside from his career, he likes studying rabbinic texts and is a proud dog dad to Biscuit, a terrier mix.

Dr. Tristan Reed is an economist in the Development Economics Research Group of the World Bank. He joined the World Bank Group at the International Finance Corporation, after starting his career as a consultant with McKinsey and Company in their Lagos, Nigeria office. He has worked on a number of flagship analytic reports for the Bank, and supported policy dialogue related to infrastructure lending operations in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. His research focuses on the industrial organization and political economy of low and lower-middle income countries, and has been supported by the International Growth Centre (IGC) and the National Bureau for Economic Research (NBER). Tristan holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University and a BA summa cum laude in economics from UCLA.

Dr. Alexandros Ragoussis is a Senior Economist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation, Associate Fellow of the German Development Institute, and Associate of the Sorbonne, University of Paris I. He has published and debated extensively on issues of foreign investment, private sector development and industrial development and advised governments around the world on their policies in these areas. Earlier in his career, Alexandros held positions at the OECD and taught economics at the University of Sydney in Australia and at Sciences-Po, Paris. Alexandros holds a PhD in economics from the University of Sydney.