Chinemelu Okafor is a researcher and scholar originating from Umuoji, Anambra State, Nigeria. Currently, she is a doctoral student, Graduate Prize Fellow, and Karl Deutsch Fellow in Harvard’s Government Department. Chinemelu seeks to confront pressing economic policy issues in West Africa by understanding and explaining the institutional (formal and informal), structural (network), economic, and electoral incentives that can work to constrain political elite behavior in weakly institutionalized settings. Chinemelu is also a Graduate Student Affiliate with Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and with Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences. Furthermore, she concurrently works as the Founder and President of the Research in Color Foundation, a 501c(3) non-profit organization which seeks to increase the number (and improve the retention) of historically excluded scholars in economics and economics-adjacent fields through mentorship and financial support. In the past, she has worked with institutions such as the World Bank Group, the United Nations, and the Royal African Society, among others. Chinemelu holds a Bachelor’s in Economics and International Studies from the University of Michigan and a Master’s in Applied Economics from the George Washington University.
Odichinma (Odi) Akosionu is a 3rd year PhD Student in the Health Services Research, Policy and Administration Program at the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health. She is in the Health Economics track and does research in long term care space with a focus on racial inequities in quality of care and quality of life outcomes. Currently, she works as a Research Assistant at the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health on a National Institute of Health-funded grant focused on system factors and facial disparities in nursing home quality of life and care. She also works as a Research Assistant on a Minnesota state-funded project to develop a legislature approved Assisted Living Report Card System. Prior to this, Odi worked as a Human Services Program Consultant with the Minnesota Department of Human Services where she coordinated state research efforts for the National Core Indicators- Aging and Physical Disabilities Survey and served on the Minnesota State Quality Council in a research capacity.
Odi holds a master's degree in Public Health from the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health and a bachelor's degree in Human Biology from the University of California, San Diego.
Abigail Matthew is a Bridge to the Doctorate Fellow in Economics at the University of Virginia. Abigail’s previous professional experiences include working as a fiscal and policy analyst for a county government in the greater Baltimore area, and as an assistant manager in commercial banking. Abigail holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics with a concentration in Latina/o Studies from Williams College.
