I help organizations decide which programs to fund, how to design them, and whether they are working. They include donors, foundations, governments, private firms, and others working on development impact.
For more than 13 years, this has meant deciding which questions are worth answering, designing quantitative and qualitative studies that hold up in messy, real-world conditions, and judging what the results actually show, alongside leading research across countries and advising on how programs are designed and where investment goes. The range has been wide, across education, skills, gender, labor markets, health, and energy access, but the task has stayed the same, turning evidence into decisions the people responsible can act on.
Lately, though, I have been thinking less about programs and more about people. As technology advances and takes on more of the thinking, what happens to human cognitive agency and capability, and which parts of it matter more? I'm starting to write about that here, and new pieces will appear over time.