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Christopher Ksoll
Christopher Ksoll is the lead principal investigator on the Tara Akshar+ evaluation. Currently, he is a Researcher at Mathematica Policy Research. Formerly, he was an Assistant Professor in the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa, a visiting professor in the Agricultural and Resource Economics Department at the University of California at Berkeley and an Associate Member of the Centre for the Study of African Economies and of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. He has pursued graduate studies in Economics at the University of Mannheim, the University of California at Berkeley and Yale University, and received his Ph.D. degree from Yale University. His research interests cover topics in education and in the micro-economics of development. His recent research is focused on the empowerment impacts of education and the impacts of using information technology for education in the US and in developing countries. Dr. Ksoll's Mathematica website, please click here. To see Dr. Ksoll's personal website, please click here.
Annemie Maertens
Annemie Maertens is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economics at the University of Sussex. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor in International Development at the University of Pittsburgh (associated with the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs). She has obtained her PhD in Applied Economics and Management from Cornell University in 2010. Before embarking on a career as an economist, she was an agricultural engineer, with an interest in tropical agricultural systems. She approaches international poverty from a social and behavioral angle, investigating the role of social networks and deviations of the rational expected utility model in decision-making in developing countries. To see Dr. Maertens' website, please click here.Ashwini Deshpande
Ashwini Deshpande is a Professor of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. Her Ph.D. and early publications have been on the international debt crisis of the 1980s. Subsequently, she has been working on the economics of discrimination and affirmative action issues, with a focus on caste and gender in India. She has published extensively in leading scholarly journals. She is the author of "Grammar of Caste: economic discrimination in contemporary India", OUP, 2011 and "Affirmative Action in India", OUP, Oxford India Short Introductions series, 2013. She is the editor of: "Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity" (along with William Darity, Jr.), Routledge, London, 2003; "Globalization and Development: A Handbook of New Perspectives", Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2007 (hardcover) and 2010 (paperback); "Capital Without Borders: Challenges to Development", Anthem Press, UK, 2010 (hardcover) and 2012 (paperback) and “Global Economic Crisis and the Developing World” (with Keith Nurse), Routledge, London, 2012. She received the EXIM Bank award for outstanding dissertation (now called the IERA Award) in 1994, and the 2007 VKRV Rao Award for Indian economists under 45.
Abu Shonchoy
Abu Shonchoy has graduated from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh with a BSc (Honours) in Economics, and Master in Economics from the Australian National University (ANU) and a PhD in Economics from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. He is currently working as a research fellow at the Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) JETRO, Japan and as an adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Public Policy (GraSPP). Prior to joining IDE, he worked for BRAC University in Bangladesh and in UNSW, UTS in Australia as a lecturer. He has also worked for International Monetary Fund (IMF), in Washington DC, USA during the period of 2007-08 as a research intern. He is a development economist with interests in impact evaluation, migration and micro-econometrics. He has several ongoing field research projects in Bangladesh and India. His current research interests include projects on micro-finance, migration, electrification and education. He has already published papers in international peer-reviewed journals and recently published a book titled "Seasonality and Micro-credit" from Springer. To see Abu's website, please click here.
Alain Desrochers
Alain Desrochers is professor at the School of Psychology of the University of Ottawa. He holds a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Western Ontario. His area of expertise is psycholinguistics and reading processes. He is the director of the Cognitive Psychology of Language Laboratory (CPLL) and he leads the Literacy Development Research Group (LDRG) both at the University of Ottawa. His research program aims at investigating the historical evolution of alphabetic languages, the development of standardized tests for the assessment of reading skills in French, the development of reading skills among French- and English-speaking children, the cognitive processes that support fluent reading in French-, English-, and Spanish-speaking adults, quantitative analysis of the French, English and Spanish lexicons, the development of reading instruction programs, and the implementation of the response-to-intervention model (RTI) in schools.
Kunyu Wang
Kunyu Wang is a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Ottawa. He has wide-ranging research interests in environmental economics and economic development. He has a long-standing interest in combining theory and empirical evidence to design more efficient government policies. His previous work addressed policy issues on the socioeconomic inequality of child health in MENA countries. He is currently working as a research assistant for Dr. Christopher Ksoll and expecting to work in the academic or research-based policy-making institutions after completing PhD.
Former members of the team
Phil Spencer
Phil Spencer finished his B.A. (Honours) in Economics at the University of Ottawa in December 2015. As a Research Assistant, he has worked on the TA project since the summer of 2015. Phil has field experience in Benin, where he worked at the African School of Economics as a Visiting Research Associate, and in Bangladesh, where he conducted research on labor migration in partnership with BRAC University. He hopes to develop his technical skills and satisfy his desire to contribute to the field of Development Economics by pursuing a Masters in Economics at the University of Toronto starting in 2016.
Sahib Tulsi
Sahib Tulsi is pursuing a Masters in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. He completed his M.A. in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, in 2013. He worked on the TA project for a year after his Masters. His research interests include multidimensional facets of poverty, development and conflict, inequality and gender. He was also involved in other research projects that delve deeper into these topics.
Sukriti Verma
Sukriti Verma is currently an Officer Trainee at the Indian Economic Service, Government of India. She has worked as a Research Assistant for the TA project for over a year. She obtained her Master of Arts degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi in 2011. Prior to working for this project, she worked for ICICI Bank (Mumbai), a leading private sector bank in India. Her research interests include female literacy outcomes, poverty, and unemployment policy implications. Sukriti is a pro-active, results-oriented, and hard-working individual, who hopes to work for the underprivileged in her country in the future.
Vinitha Rachel Varghese
Vinitha Rachel Varghese is a Senior Research Assistant at IFPRI, India. She worked as a Research Assistant for the TA project. She graduated from St.Stephen's College, University of Delhi, with a B.A. (Honours) in Economics (2010) and a Masters in Economics (2013) from University of Hyderabad. Her research interests cover topics in education, especially primary education and development economics. Beyond research, she is advocating for universal primary education across India through her organisation named PENCIL (Primary Education Needs & Community Initiated Learning). She wishes to pursue a PhD in applied economics in the near future.
Sakshi Bharadwaj
Sakshi Bhardwaj is a Research Associate at Centre for Policy Research, Delhi. She worked as Research Assistant for the project for over a year. She graduated from Ramjas College, University of Delhi, with a B.A (Honours) in Economics (2012), and Master in Economics (2014) from the Delhi School of Economics. She received the Krishna Raj fellowship to undertake field-based research on “Dropout in Upper Primary and Secondary School in Delhi”. Her research interests include investigating opportunities for economic development, particularly the role of education in sustainable development and development macroeconomics. In future, she plans to pursue PhD in Economics and related fields.
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