Food for Thought: Conducting Research with Local Partners

About the speakers: 

Jeremy Bowles

Jeremy Bowles is a postdoctoral fellow at the King Center. He studies the political economy of development, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and a substantive focus on questions of state capacity and electoral accountability. He received a PhD in political science from Harvard University in 2021 and, in September 2023, will join the Department of Political Science and School of Public Policy at University College London as an assistant professor.

Marcel Fafchamps

Marcel Fafchamps is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and a member of the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law. His current research focuses on entrepreneurship, factor markets, and the efficiency of social networks in Africa and South Asia. He also has ongoing research on political economy issues in Africa and Asia. Fafchamps studied law and economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He holds a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California Berkeley.

Jenna Forsyth

Jenna Forsyth is a postdoctoral fellow with the Woods Institute for the Environment. She completed her PhD with the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources and obtained her Master's in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Washington. Her research brings together principles of environmental science, epidemiology, and behavior change. Her recent research has focused on understanding and preventing lead exposure in South Asia.

Melanie Morten

Melanie Morten is an associate professor at Stanford University. She is a development economist who focuses on the migration of low-income individuals. Her research explores the micro- and macroeconomic implications and determinants of migration in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia. She received her PhD in economics from Yale University.

About the moderator: 

Pascaline Dupas

Pascaline Dupas is the Kleinheinz Family Professor of International Studies, a senior fellow at both the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Freeman Spogli Institute, and the King Center’s faculty director. She received her PhD in economics from the Paris School of Economics. Her research focuses on scalable policies for improving household well-being in low income countries. Among other projects, she has conducted experiments throughout Africa to determine how best to price, target, and distribute essential health products.