Co-supervised masters dissertation programme in Economics

Jose Cuesta is a Lead Economist at the World Bank and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. He previously served as Chief of Social and Economic Policy at the UNICEF Office of Research in Florence, Senior Research Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Economist at UNDP.

His research focuses on poverty and conflict economics, including distributive analysis of social policies, intra-household allocation, and social protection and labor distortions. He also studies links between poverty, conflict, and culture across Latin America, Asia, and Africa. He is Editor of the European Journal of Development Research and Associate Editor of the Journal of Economic Policy Reform. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford.

Alejandro Lavopa is a Research and Industrial Policy Officer at UNIDO, where he leads the Industrial Development Report and works on industrialisation, social inclusion, and technological upgrading at the intersection of economic development, structural change, and innovation. He earned a PhD in Economics and Policy Studies of Technical Change from UNU-MERIT, focusing on development economics, industrial dynamics, and innovation systems. 

Before joining UNIDO, he worked at Argentina’s Ministry of Economy and taught at the University of Buenos Aires, combining policy and academic experience. His publications appear in World Development, Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, and the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, and he has contributed to volumes on industrial policy and development. His work informs interested in development policy and innovation.

Fernando Santiago is an Industrial Policy Officer at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization where he specializes in research and policy advisory services on industrial policy. He is a member of the scientific board of the Latin American Network for the Study of Learning Systems, Innovation and Competency Building. He is also a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South. 

Before joining UNIDO, his experience included research, teaching, public sector programming and private consulting in Mexico and Canada. He has published on STI policy, industrial policy and organizational learning focused on developing countries. Fernando is an economist at UNAM and holds degrees from the universities of Sussex and Maastricht.

Jihye Moon is an International Development Expert at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), working in the Directorate of Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Industrial Development, Division of Industrial Policy Advice and Capacity Development (TCS/IPC). She has over 15 years of experience as a diplomat with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea. Her work covers development cooperation policy, climate diplomacy, and international legal affairs. 

She has contributed to national strategy design, policy coordination, and programme review. Her experience includes work with UN institutions, Article 6 negotiations, and climate finance frameworks. She holds degrees in Climate Environment and International Law, focusing on green development cooperation and emissions reduction policy, with strong analytical and policy-oriented research experience overall.

María Eugenia Dávalos is a Senior Economist focused on analysis and evidence-based policy design to expand economic opportunity and reduce poverty. She has worked across Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe and Central Asia, combining analytics and operations on economic mobility, distributional impacts of policies and shocks, labor markets, gender, migration, and inequality. 

Her recent research examines inequality of opportunity, intergenerational mobility, and the geography of labor markets and job quality. Alongside her analytical work, she has used World Bank financing instruments to translate diagnostics into policy reform. She holds a masters in economic policy management from CERDI in France and a PhD in economics from Fordham University as a Fulbright scholar, with extensive experience in applied development policy.

Emcet O. Taş is a Development Economist at the World Bank and Program Manager of the Vienna Development Knowledge Center. He specialises in bridging research and practice through evidence-based policymaking and strategic investments in infrastructure and human development. An interdisciplinary researcher, he uses quantitative and qualitative methods to study poverty, labor, gender, and social policy. He has led research initiatives and integrated service delivery programs across South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, East Africa, and the Americas. 

Previously based in Washington, D.C. and Jakarta, he manages knowledge a center focused on Europe and Central Asia. His work has shaped policies in over a dozen countries and appears in journals and books. He holds a PhD in Economics from American University.

Dhiraj Sharma is a Senior Economist in the Fiscal Policy and Growth Global Department at the World Bank, where he works on poverty measurement, distributional analysis, and policy design across Eastern and Southern Africa. He previously led operations and analytics in the Middle East and North Africa and Europe and Central Asia regions, with a strong focus on fragility, displacement, and welfare monitoring. 

Dhiraj has led and contributed to peer-reviewed journals, flagship reports, policy research working papers, and operational analytics on poverty, forced displacement, distributional impact of fiscal policies, and labor markets. He holds a PhD in Applied Economics from The Ohio State University and has extensive experience on policy analysis and evaluating development programs across Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.

Ebad Ebadi is an Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Sustainable Development at the World Bank. His work focuses on applying econometric and data analysis methods to development challenges, particularly in labor markets, international trade, and the economic and social impacts of environmental externalities.

Prior to joining the World Bank, he taught at George Washington University and the University of Tehran, and held research positions at several think tanks and institutions, including the IMF. He holds a PhD in Economics from George Washington University and an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Paola Fajardo-Heyward is Program Manager of the Human Rights Trust Fund at the World Bank, leading efforts to integrate human rights across operations. She previously served as Human Rights Technical Lead at the Trust Fund and, from 2021 to 2023, supported the World Bank’s collaboration with Chile’s Office for Human Rights to evaluate and develop the National Human Rights Action Plans. 

She has extensive experience as a human rights scholar and former university professor in the United States and Colombia, researching conditions that strengthen human rights practices and links between development aid and rights. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Binghamton University, a postgraduate degree from Universidad de Los Andes, and a BA from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.