Employment and Education
I started my career working at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab at MIT in 2007, working with Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, and Rachel Glennerster. From there I moved to Liberia, to serve as Country Director for Innovations for Poverty Action and work with Chris Blattman. In 2012 I joined the World Bank's Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab, and I have been at the World Bank ever since.
I have a bachelors degree from Macalester College, and a masters degree from Princeton's School of Public and International Affairs.
Projects
Innovations in Financing Women Entrepreneurs Initiative in Ethiopia: (i) Cashflow-based lending and use of moveable assets as collateral; (ii) Repeat borrowers and graduation from group to individual lending; (iii) Uncollateralized digital MSME working capital loan; (iv) Digital merchant payments; (v) Rural land-certificate based lending
Ghana Commercial Agricultural Project: (i) Contract farming and irrigation scheme in Upper East; (ii) Contract farming scheme in Accra Plains
Partnerships with North Volta Rural Bank in Ghana: (i) Automated commitment savings program for salaried workers; (ii) Deposit collection and lockboxes for entrepreneurs; (iii) Mobile money-linked commitment savings program.
Liberia: (i) Cognitive behavioral therapy and cash transfers for high-risk urban young men; (ii) Rural peacebuilding program; (iii) Ex-combatant reintegration program involving skill training and asset transfers; (iv) Adolescent girls program
Women Entrepreneur Finance Initiative (WeFi): (i) Overall initiative design and proposal writing; and (ii) Co-Leading WeFi Nigeria.
Academic Publications and Outputs
Publications
Sex, Lies, and Surveys: The Role of Interviewer Characteristics (with Joao Montalvao). [PDF] Economics Bulletin
Salary delays and overdrafts in rural Ghana (with Niklas Buehren, Virginia Ceretti, Ervin Dervisevic, Markus Goldstein, Leora Klapper, and Simone Schaner) [PDF]. AEA Papers and Proceedings,
Measuring the measurement error: a method to qualitatively validate survey data (with Christopher Blattman, Julian Jamison, Katherine Rodrigues, and Margaret Sheridan [PDF]. Journal of Development Economics
Working Papers
The Limits of Commitment: who benefits from illiquid savings products (with Niklas Buehren, Markus Goldstein, Leora Klapper, and Simone Schaner). [PDF].
The Fertility Impacts of Development Programs (with Aletheia Donald, Markus Goldstein and Mathilde Sage) [link].
Household production efficiency, women’s empowerment, and household cooperation (with Kelly Jones, Maria Recalde, Silvia Espinosa and Markus Goldstein).
Sisters of Success: Experimental evidence from an adolescent girls’ program in Liberia (with Joao Montalvao).
Premarital Fertility in Liberia: Exploring Predictors of Early Sexual Debut and Pregnancy Among Adolescent Girls in Monrovia (with Michelle Poulin, Natalia Cantet, and Shelley Clark).
Socioemotional Skills: The Development and Validation of 14 Measures in Five Sub-Saharan Countries with Implications for Employment and Income Outcomes (with Clara Delavallade, Smita Das, Léa Rouanet, and Vic Marsh).
Presentations
Presenter at National Conference on Making Ethiopia's Financial Sector Work for Women, and led preparation of report that drove conference agenda. [Link]. 2024
Premarital Fertility in Liberia: Exploring predictors of early sexual debut and pregnancy among adolescent girls in Monrovia (presentation delivered by co-author). Population Association of America Annual Conference, 2021.
The impact of social and emotional Learning: Experimental evidence from adolescent girls in Liberia. Center for the Study of African Economics. 2019.
Efficiency in intrahousehold resource allocation and women's bargaining power (presentation delivered by co-author). American Economics Association Conference. 2018.
Policy Briefs and Reports
Challenging conventional wisdom about girls schooling. [Link]
Supporting girls’ transition into adolescent and adulthood in Liberia. [Report; Executive Summary]
Helping female entrepreneurs access digital platforms: The importance of a tech-plus-touch approach and others lessons learned. [Link]
From collateral to cashflow: Expanding access to finance for Nigeria's female business owners. [Link]
Making Ethiopia's financial sector work for women. [Link].
Country Experience
Brazil, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Panama, and Slovakia
Other activities
Mother of three. Volunteer work with refugees and survivors of domestic violence.