Bio

I am currently a research fellow at the Policy Studies Institute (PSI). I received my PhD in Development Economics from UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, the Netherlands (2021). My previous roles include consultant positions at the World Bank Group and the University of Oxford, as well as a lecturer at the Department of Economics, Dilla University, Ethiopia. I am also a Research Fellow at Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), Kenya. Recently, I was a Visiting Scholar at the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University.

My research interest lies at the intersection of development, labor, and behavioral economics covering social protection (e.g., cash transfers), conflict, evidence use in policymaking, agency, trust and social cohesion, AI, and youth employment and labor markets. Most of my research focuses on the East Africa region -- Ethiopia, Sudan, and Kenya. I use impact evaluation methods (Randomized Controlled Trial), lab-in-the-field experiments, self-reported and incentivized surveys, and micro-econometrics.