Our team

Hannah is a Masters of Public Administration in Development Practice candidate at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, specializing in Gender and Public Policy. She is particularly interested in the intersection of representation, gender, public discourse, and policy.

Prior to SIPA, Hannah most recently worked for five years at an international media development organization. She managed projects at the intersection of human rights, press freedom, and access to information in Jordan, South Africa, and across Canada focusing on Indigenous representation in media, combating misinformation and disinformation, and supporting independent media.

Hannah is a graduate of the University of Toronto majoring in International Relations and Peace, Conflict, and Justice studies, and minoring in Women and Gender Studies.

Carmen is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Carmen worked as a social protection consultant for the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. In these roles, she focused on policy analysis on social programs, labor market, care policy, and barriers to female labor participation in Mexico and Latin America.

Carmen has a strong interest in advancing gender equality and social inclusion with evidence-based strategies. In addition, she has experience working on international economics and monetary policy since she started her career at the Economic Research Division of the Central Bank of Mexico. Carmen holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE).

Thomas is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS). He is passionate about combining analytical approaches with qualitative research and human-centered design to improve service delivery in developing countries.

Prior to commencing his graduate studies, Thomas spent four years in Indonesia, first working as an anthropological researcher focused on refugee communities, and subsequently as a research analyst at the World Bank in Jakarta. There he worked on a range of community driven development and governance programs focused on improving early childhood development, education and maternal health service delivery in rural and remote regions. Whilst in Indonesia he co-founded the Jakarta Development Network and served as president of Same Skies, an NGO that supports the provision of education and other services to asylum seeker and refugee children across Southeast Asia. Following this he worked as a researcher working in early childhood development, supporting randomized control trials and population surveys projects in Laos, Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and Samoa.

Summer is a dual-degree candidate for the Master in Public Policy (MPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School and Master in Business Administration (MBA) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Before graduate school, Summer worked as a management consultant at McKinsey and Company across Europe with a focus on public sector, private equity and principal investors, and strategy work. She drove recruiting and activities for women in her office as a Female Committee member and also worked on collaborations with Teach First Denmark and CEMS.

Concurrently, she was the Vice-Chairman and ran fundraising for a non-profit providing creative after-school classes in Copenhagen and spent a summer in Ladakh, India, supporting and teaching young nuns. Summer is a graduate of Copenhagen Business School with a BSc in International Business whose interest in education and economic empowerment was awakened during her exchange semester in Hong Kong, during which she travelled and volunteered in rural China and Southeast Asia.

Siddhant is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Public Administration and International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to Harvard, Siddhant worked as a research associate at the Behavioral Development Lab at J-PAL South Asia on a project based in Goa that examines the effect of low-cost, peer-delivered psychotherapy on economic well-being. Earlier, he worked with IFMR LEAD on the scoping of early-stage projects on how savings behavior is correlated with subjective probabilities of life events and the impact of loneliness among migrant factory workers in Chennai.

Siddhant holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Cornell University and a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University. His interests lie in the intersection between behavioral and development economics.

Katherin is a candidate for the Master in Public Administration in Development Practice at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Katherin worked as an Economic Advisor at the National Planning Department in Colombia. In this role, Katherin advised the royalties director and lead the investment target planning for the regional investment in the country.

Katherin started her career at Citibank Colombia, analyzing risk for the portfolio of small and medium enterprises-SME. There, she developed a strong ability for conducting financial analysis, as well as to create effective strategies for mitigating risk and uncertainty. Katherin is a graduate of La Universidad de Los Andes in Colombia, with a major in Economics.

Jossie is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to graduate school, Jossie was a consultant at the Rural Development Division of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in Washington, D.C. She collaborated on the impact evaluation of rural development projects, including the design, sampling, data collection and analysis. She participated in studies for several countries of Latin American and the Caribbean region, including Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua and Peru. She also contributed to the incorporation of a gender analysis component to the project assessments.

Before joining the IDB, Jossie was as an analyst at the Department of Economics Studies of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru, where she worked in the compilation of the national accounts. Jossie is a graduate of the Universidad de Piura with a major in Economics.

Isabella is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS). Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Isabella was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Nairobi. Isabella worked on both public and private sector strategies across Africa, with a focus on economic development. Some of her work includes industrial promotion, investment attraction for national flagship projects, and research on Chinese economic engagement in Africa.

Previously, Isabella was a Business Development Associate at a startup Buymore, focusing on strategic partnerships and product development. Isabella holds a B.Sc. in Financial Economics, first class honours, from Strathmore University, Kenya.

Vaishnavi is a Masters in Development Practice student at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). She specializes in Gender and Public Policy. During her time at SIPA, Vaishnavi has worked with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in Gujarat, India, to help their smallholder farmers build climate resilience by identifying agricultural technologies that suit their needs.

Before her graduate studies, Vaishnavi spent close to four years working in investment banking in Chennai, India. During her time at graduate school, Vaishnavi has developed a keen interest in working with the economic and social inclusion of refugees affected by conflict, by improving their access to education, training, and livelihood opportunities, while adapting a gender-sensitive approach.

Claudia is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Before commencing her graduate studies, Claudia was a Labor Policy Specialist at the Governmental Delivery Unit in the Peruvian Prime Minister’s Office. In that role, she advised and monitored the second-line management of the Ministries of Economy, Labor, and Production in planning and implementing prioritized policies for achieving the government’s goal of labor formalization. Previously, Claudia worked as an Economic Studies Specialist in that same office, analyzing data related to the government priorities to assess their level of implementation and identify bottlenecks.

Claudia started her career at the Ministry of Education, collaborating on the development and monitoring of new educational policies. There, she developed a range of monitoring systems and created roadmaps for improvement for different schemes that existed under the Ministry. Claudia is a graduate of the Universidad de Piura with a major in Economics.

Anais is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (HKS). Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Anais worked as an analyst at the Economic Research Division of the Central Bank of Mexico. In that capacity, Anais produced research on labor markets in Mexico, as well as the impact of social policy in the labor market.

Having developed a strong interest in social inequalities since she was young, Anais started her career as an RA for a Mexican NGO-her first hands-on experience with the design, implementation, and evaluation of social projects. Anais is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) with a double major in Economics and Political Science.

Erika is a candidate for the Masters in Public Administration in International Development at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to commencing her graduate studies, Erika was the Deputy Director of Research and Analysis of the Financial Market at the Ministry of Finance for Mexico. In that capacity, Erika analyzed data on global development to assess their impact on Mexico’s macroeconomic fundamentals.

Alongside her professional career, Erika collaborated with CREA, an organization that develops and implements programs designed to empower women entrepreneurs in deprived areas, where she led a project to implement a business plan at a textile processing business in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. Erika started her career at the Central Bank of Mexico where she performed forecasts on cash flow management strategies in order to ensure the effective transmission of Monetary Policy. Erika is a graduate of the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México with a major in Economics.

Emily is a dual-degree candidate for the Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) at the Harvard Kennedy School and Master in Business Administration (MBA) at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to her graduate studies, Emily worked for 5 years as a management consultant at Bain and Company across Tokyo, Taipei, and Chicago, where her experience spanned the technology, finance, infrastructure, and consumer packaged goods industries.

In addition, Emily worked for a year as an Innovation and Change Management Consultant at the United Nations World Food Programme, where her work focused on increasing efficiency and knowledge management. Alongside her career in consulting, Emily co-founded an education technology company called Nesuku, which aims to help private instructors better manage and grow their businesses.