Nina Cunha, PhD, has over 10 years of international development experience, with a focus on education. At FHI 360 she served as Senior Research Associate and Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist. Ms. Cunha has worked as a Research Assistance for Stanford University and the World Bank, where she was responsible for developing research design, coordinating field work, negotiating with governments, designing surveys, assuring data quality, training and managing enumerators, performing impact evaluation and analyzing data, and writing reports. She’s been recently involved in three randomized trials studies in Brazil. In addition to an PhD in Economics of Education from Stanford University, Ms. Cunha also holds a master’s degree in Economics (MA) from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG - Brazil), and a bachelor’s degree (BA) from the São Paulo School of Economics (EESP). Ms. Cunha is fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

As a Senior Research Associate at FHI 360, Dr. Cunha worked through research and data analysis, supporting the design, implementation and publication of quantitative research on key issues in education, as well as providing technical support in FHI 360’s projects and impact evaluation efforts. Her recent work at FHI 360 includes a systematic review on of what works in designing systems and scaling-up youth interventions; developing and evaluating the psychometric properties of a teacher well-being assessment toolkit using a sample of El Salvadorian teachers; evaluating the impact of communities investing in education for child health and safety in Malawi (DREAMS); an impact evaluation of an integrated workflow development and sexual reproductive health for youth in Bangladesh; developing and evaluating the psychometric properties of a tool to measure soft skills among youth and young adults in Guatemala and Uganda; a research study to measure equity in education resource allocation across different countries; and technical support to different early grade reading programs, such as a 5-year program in Ghana (USAID Ghana Partnership for Education Learning), and a 5-year program in Djibouti.