Shamayla Durrin Islam

Hi, I’m Shamayla Durrin Islam, a Predoctoral Fellow in Economics at the University of Toronto, where I work with Professors Ceren Baysan and Román Andrés Zárate on research in political economy, education, and development economics. I graduated from U of T in 2025 with a BSc in Economics (Data Analytics), with minors in Statistics and Mathematics.

I’m passionate about studying democratic governance, poverty reduction, and development in low- and middle-income countries, and I enjoy combining data analysis with field-based research.

Outside of academia, I founded Project Bornali, a non-profit dedicated to creating autism awareness in Bangladesh and supporting underprivileged individuals with special needs-a cause close to my heart through my journey with my sibling.

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GDP growth estimates can be unreliable for several reasons, including weak national statistical systems or authoritarian governments overstating growth. Bangladesh, for example, has a Statistical Capacity score of "C" from the World Bank, meaning its data should be "used with caution," and it has been under authoritarian rule for the past 15 years. Studies, such as Elvidge et al., have shown that nighttime light (NTL) data is strongly correlated with GDP (r^2= 0.97). Henderson et al. developed a statistical framework that combines reported GDP growth with NTL growth to create a synthetic measure of economic growth. In this project, I am further refining that framework by incorporating additional country-specific factors, aiming to improve its accuracy and apply it to reconstruct GDP growth for Bangladesh and other developing countries.