PhD candidate

Development Economics

I’m a researcher in the field of development economics, with a focus on financial inclusion and development finance. Much of my work centers on informal financial institutions such as Savings Groups, as well as microfinance institutions (MFIs) and other mechanisms aimed at improving financial access in low-income settings.

Currently, I am awaiting the public defense (date forthcoming) of my dual doctorate degree at the Faculty of Economics and Business at KU Leuven (Belgium) and the University of Agder (Norway), under the supervision of Dr. Bert D’Espallier and Dr. Roy Mersland. In the meantime, I am working full time as a researcher at KU Leuven in a postdoctoral capacity.

My research uses rigurous quantitative methods to study how people in poverty manage risk and access finance, focussing on both formal and informal institutions. I have conducted fieldwork in South America and worked with large-scale and geolocated datasets, mostly covering Africa. My toolkit includes panel data techniques, difference-in-differences, and other econometric methods. I am proficient in Stata and R.