What led you to CID’s Growth Lab? Why did you want to work here?

Sehar Noor: CID is really at the frontier of a lot of the topics that I was interested in as an Economics major in undergrad. Everything from growth diagnostics to complexity work, it’s looking at diversification from a unique perspective, and I was drawn to both the faculty and the research that is produced by the fellows here.

Bruno Zuccolo: What I really liked about the Growth Lab was the intersection of researchers working on the very academic side of learning about growth, but also a very dedicated team of fellows and research assistants applying that research in country projects. The country projects are varied and work through very different economies; when I first joined I was working on projects in Albania and Argentina, and I was working on issues of growth in all those countries. I think this was a fantastic opportunity to learn about countries that I didn’t know that much about and to be able to apply rigorous methodology and statistical analysis. 

What stands out about the Research Assistant role at the Growth Lab?

Ana Grisanti: I have many responsibilities, ranging from data cleaning and the visualization of the data, to finding out who we want to interview in the field and going into the field and engaging in interviews with counterparts. One of the states within Mexico that we were working on was Baja, California, and we were doing a growth diagnostics and complexity analysis in the state. The second time I traveled to Baja, I had the opportunity to present our findings to our counterparts, which was a thrilling experience for me. I think that’s unique for the RA position at CID and one I would not have at any other center.

BZ: What I like about being an RA at CID’s Growth Lab is that you’re working on multiple projects at once, and that means you get to explore a lot of issues specific to each country. So in Albania, where I’ve worked for the past year, we work on issues of agriculture, macro growth, trade, and tourism, and as an RA you don’t always get the opportunity to delve into as many issues as this. The other thing about being an RA that’s fantastic is going to the field. At CID, the RAs really travel and represent the whole of CID in meetings with high level government officials. I remember during my second trip to Albania, we met with several of the Ministers, and I had one-on-one meetings with high level officials in the Ministry of Finance, and that’s just a unique opportunity that I couldn’t imagine having anywhere else.

What is your favorite part about working at CID’s Growth Lab?

SN: I think my favorite part is definitely the people. You have postdocs, fellows, and developers who are experts in their fields and so generous with their time. They make sure that I’m not just getting my work done, but that I’m also building skills that I can use in my future. I think it’s a place where people invest in you, and it’s not just for that deadline or for that project, but in the long run.

BZ: What I’ve most enjoyed about working at CID is how much I’ve learned while applying all of it to concrete policies in the countries we work in. I’ve learned numerous statistical methods, I’ve learned how to code in computer languages, I’ve learned how to work with the counterparts. 

AG: This can be a cliché, but my favorite part about working at CID is the people and the attitude that everyone has toward the work. Everyone is willing to help when you have questions or ideas that you think are worth exploring. I can confidently say that I’ve made a lot of great friends here.

Email us at growthlab@hks.harvard.edu if you’re interested in becoming a Research Assistant at the Growth Lab and visit our Jobs page for a list of available opportunities.

This Q&A was edited for clarity and brevity.

What led you to CID’s Growth Lab? Why did you want to work here?

Shreyas Matha: After graduating with my masters, I was looking to work at a place that addresses public policy questions but did not restrict itself solely to techniques in traditional economics. What appealed to me most about working at the Growth Lab was that the place is open to embracing experiments in newer techniques such as natural language processing and machine learning.

Semiray Kasoolu: The Growth Lab is a place of independent thinkers who are not afraid to use a holistic methodology to diagnose different development problems. And to me that freedom of research meant a lot. Another thing that really impressed me was the efficiency of deployment of those research findings to developing countries and to the counterparts in those countries. And that also really impressed me because that is very different from what I know about other development institutions.

What stands out about the Fellows role at the Growth Lab? What is your level of engagement with policymakers?

Tim Cheston: The fellows really are the front line of applying these ideas in the field, and they have a range of expertise and specialties and analyzing different data sets and applying them to different policy purposes. Traveling to Colombia, Mexico, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, and working hand in hand with ministers and technical staff across all of those countries has been a real privilege, to see both the larger struggles that unite all of those countries but also the unique features of each one of those places.

SK: The role of a fellow at the Growth Lab is unique in that it combines three things. One is using quantitative methods to discover and probe for development problems. The second one is to validate those with field work and field trips. And the third one is to use those the first two to come up with policy implications and inform of policy work. 

Ljubica Nedeloska: I had the opportunity to engage with policymakers on both the technical level and the policymaking level and also on a variety of issues such as employment strategy, disapora relations, fiscal projections, employment projections, fiscal policy among other things. This experience gave me a very interesting chance to see inside how governments work. And I think this is very unique to the GL and I don’t think it would have been possible to learn if I would have stayed in solely academia.

Nikita Taniparti: You’re doing research–you’re reframing the way that governments and policy makers ask questions… You get to interact with the minister or the government, and you hear why they can’t just do the easiest policy option that you might think they should be doing. 

What is your favorite part about working at the Growth Lab? 

LN: What I like most about working at the Growth Lab is the interdisciplinary teams of highly motivated and highly talented fellows. I also enjoy working with some of the most brilliant minds in the field of economic development. This place has high energy and also high optimism which I enjoyed very much. And last but very important, I recently became a mom and the Growth Lab specifically offered very reasonable conditions for work/life balance. 

SM: I’d say my favorite part about working at the Growth Lab is that I get to work with a floor full of postdocs and Ph.D. students who are all interested in working on questions in public policy but also coming at them from new and interesting perspectives. 

NT: The Growth Lab is where you get this chance to use your intellectual curiosity to ask the questions that really matter. You’re not just working on a really small part of something where you don’t know the outcome. Our research questions that can be very theoretical are all driven by something that’s happening in the world. We know exactly who we’re working for, whether it’s farmers on the ground or foreign workers in a different country. You know why you’re asking the question and why you’re asking it the way you do.

Miguel Santos: I like arriving in a location you know very little about, with a team of highly qualified people that challenge you constantly, and gradually learning about that place. This process of learning the nuances of a country and translating that into policy, and having the capacity to surprise people who have been there a long time, that’s my favorite part of the job.

This Q&A was edited for clarity and brevity.