Victoria Burnham

Victoria Burnham is the Executive Coordinator for the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development. In this role she works alongside the senior team assisting the Growth Lab Director, Professor Ricardo Hausmann, and serves as a direct liaison to lab faculty, staff, fellows, students, and important external contacts. 

Prior to the Growth Lab, Victoria worked as a Project Coordinator for the Technology and Public Purpose Project (TAPP) within Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she supported the fellowship for technologists, investors, and policymakers to explore avenues for reducing societal harms and protecting public purpose values. Before Harvard, Victoria served as a Special Assistant to the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration in Washington, DC. Victoria has also worked on numerous political campaigns, including presidential, state, and local campaigns. 

She received her bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Brigham Young University-Idaho, and a master’s in International Relations of the Middle East from Durham University in the United Kingdom. Her master’s thesis focused on female jihad and included a comparative analysis of different causes of western women and MENA women joining the Islamic State 

Roukaya El Houda

Roukaya joined the Growth Lab in 2022 as a Senior Research Fellow as part of the Applied Research team.

Before joining the Growth Lab, Roukaya worked as an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where she led strategy and implementation projects for public and private organizations in Africa, focusing on power and infrastructure. Previously, she worked at the GSMA as a User Research Manager investigating the impact of mobile-based services on low-income households. Prior to that, Roukaya was an Operations Consultant for four years, working on improving the performance of manufacturing plants and optimizing the supply-chain of firms in Europe, United States and Brazil. She also worked for the World Bank at the Africa Trade & Transportation unit, where she was part of the design, negotiation, and supervision of major transportation infrastructure projects in West and Central Africa.

Roukaya holds an MSc in Engineering from Ecole National des Ponts et Chaussées (Paris), an MSc in Operations Research, and a Master’s degree in Public Administration in International Development from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Her research interests focus on: labor markets, the knowledge economy, and industrial policy.

Alejandro Rueda-Sanz

Alejandro joined the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development as a Research Fellow in 2022. Previously, he worked at the Lab as a Research Intern for the Colombian Amazon Project from 2021-2022. 

Before joining the Lab, Alejandro worked for six years for different Colombian government institutions on issues ranging from macroeconomics to rural development policy. Most recently, Alejandro worked as Impact Measurement Executive at Bancoldex, Junior Researcher at Colombia’s Central Bank and an Advisor to Colombia’s Deputy Minister of Rural Development.

Alejandro holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Economics from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, with a minor in Portuguese and an Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard University with a Management Certificate. Alejandro’s research centers on growth diagnostics, rural, agriculture and land policy, and productive development.

Farah Kaddah

Farah joined the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development in 2022.

Prior to joining the Growth Lab, Farah obtained her Master’s degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University. Her career spans both government and research roles focusing on topics such as labor, skills, eductaion, and gender. Notably, Farah served as an Advisor to the Ministry of Education in Egypt, where she played a key role in the design and implementation of the national technical education reform in her country. Farah has also contributed to various research projects, collaborating with institutions such as the World Bank and the Georgetown University Initiative on Innovation, Development, and Evaluation. Her research efforts covered impact evaluations and public expenditure reviews spanning regions such as East Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East. As a Research Fellow at the Growth Lab, Farah has worked on several of the Lab’s projects in Saudi Arabia, the State of Wyoming, and Azerbaijan. Her work focuses on inclusive employment, skills, migration, and gender.

Farah holds a double bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and a Master of Public Policy from Georgetown University. Her research interests include labor markets, education, gender, and fragile and conflict-affected situations.

Steven Geofrey

Steven Geofrey (he/they) is a Front-End Software Developer with the Growth Lab. As a research-practitioner in data, design, and computation, Steven’s work is heavily informed by his interdisciplinary background in the natural sciences (biophysics), humanities (Japanese studies), and social sciences (media and information literacy). Through his research and creative practice, Steven explores themes of representation, narrative, language, and human experience, seeking to address the varied possible responses to one question in particular: What does it mean to employ visualization as a medium in which radical representation can deconstruct privileged, canonical, and dominant perspectives? To explore this, Steven’s work focuses primarily on the use of data visualization, computation, and design to investigate texts, where a “text” is anything that can be read and interpreted, serves as a set of coherent signs and symbols, and functions as something that is situated and composed: novels, poetry, song lyrics, film screenplay, musical score, cinematography, historiography, urban layout, archival data, the visual design of websites, and beyond.

Steven received an M.S. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University (2013) and B.A. in chemistry and Asian studies from St. Olaf College (2011). From 2011-2012, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Japan at Kyoto University. Before joining Harvard, Steven was an Assistant Teaching Professor/Designer in Residence at Northeastern University, and previously worked in libraries as a consultant in data visualization and digital humanities. Outside of the Growth Lab, Steven maintains an active freelance practice and does research in information literacy as Senior Researcher in Information Design with Project Information Literacy.

Zhuoran Ren

Zhuoran Ren joined the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab as a Visiting Fellow in from March – September 2022.

Her research focuses on multinational enterprises and regional industrial development. By measuring and analyzing economic complexity and industrial relatedness, she aims to explore the impact of foreign-owned enterprises on China’s regional industrial development.

She obtained her bachelor’s degree from East China Normal University in 2014 and is now a Ph.D. candidate at Peking University.

Wenwan Jin

Wenwan Jin joined the Growth Lab at Harvard’s Center for International Development as a Visiting Fellow From January – September 2022.

She obtained B.A. from China Agriculture University in 2014, and is now a Ph.D. candidate at the Peking University of Beijing, China. She conducted research in the field of evolutionary economic geography, transportation and regional development, as well as studies on migration.

Luis Espinoza

Luis Espinoza joined the Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2014. His research interests are the process of economic structural transformation, both from a historical and a contemporary perspective, and how it can be (or cannot be) fostered by active industrial policies, not only from a “technical” point of view, but also from a political economy and state capability one. Moreover, he is interested in the relationship between this process and economic inequality.

Before joining CID, Luis worked as full-time teaching assistant at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, covering not only the core courses in economics but also economic history and history of economic thought. Previously he also worked as a research assistant in GRADE, a Peruvian think-tank based in Lima.

He holds a B.A. in Economics and a Diploma in Applied Mathematics from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and a Master in Public Administration/International Development from Harvard University.

Juan Obach

Juan Obach joined the Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2016. Prior to joining CID, Juan worked for four years in the Central Government of Chile. First in the Ministry of Social Development and second in the Ministry of Labor as part of an IADB Delivery Unit with the aim of overhauling the National System of Job Training of Chile. He also worked as a summer consultant in the Development Centre at the OECD, contributing to the publication of the 2016 Latin American Economic Outlook.

His research interests are in labor markets, income distribution and productive policies and particularly, how these topics can become stepping stones to achieve structural transformations and long-term sustainable growth in developing countries.

Juan holds a BS in Business Administration and a Master in Science of Administration from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. He also holds a Master in Public Administration/International Development from Harvard University.

Eduardo Lora

Eduardo Lora is an associate at the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab. He has been Chief Economist of the Inter-American Development Bank (2008-2012) and Executive Director of Fedesarrollo, Colombia (1991-1996). He is Vice-President of the Latin American and the Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and editor of Vox.Lacea. He has a monthly column in the Colombian magazine Dinero. His academic and professional awards include the title of “Distinguished Alumnus” of the London School of Economics, where he obtained his M.Sc. in Economics in 1982.

He has published in numerous academic journals and has been the coordinator and main author of several books on Latin American development issues, most recently More than Revenue: Taxation as a Development Tool (2013), The State of State Reform in Latin America (2008), and Beyond Facts: Understanding Quality of Life (2008). He is also the author of a textbook of Economic Statistics that is now in its fourth edition (Técnicas de Medición Económica, only in Spanish).