Executive Director
AIM for Scale Secretariat
Paul Winters is the Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Global Affairs and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. He also serves as Executive Director of the Secretariat of the Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security and Agriculture. His research and teaching focus on rural poverty, food insecurity and climate change and the evaluation of policies and programs designed to address these issues. Prior to joining Notre Dame, he worked at the International Fund for Agricultural Development, American University in Washington, DC, the Inter-American Development Bank, the University of New England in Australia, and the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru. He holds a PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California at Berkeley.
Director
AIM for Scale Secretariat
Imara Salas is an Associate Director at the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago, where she manages the secretariat for the Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture. She leads partnerships mobilizing over $1 billion for evidence-based innovations in agriculture, climate resilience, and innovation. Previously, she worked with the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, Harvard University, and Chile’s Center for Public Policy, contributing to agricultural and digital transformation projects. Imara holds a Master of Public Policy (MPP) from Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service in Economics from Georgetown University.
Tobias Baedeker is an agriculture development economist specializing in innovative solutions for climate resilience and food systems transformation. Over 14 years at the World Bank, he led teams designing and implementing operations across 20+ countries in Africa, Latin America, MENA, and South Asia, driving over $1.5 billion in investments for food security, emission reductions, and value chain integration. Tobias has co-authored articles in Nature Climate Change and Nature Food and published various technical reports. Previously, he worked as Project Coordinator for Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and Young Leader for Sustainability at GIZ. He holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the London School of Economics (LSE) and a Bachelor of Arts in Economic Sciences from the University of St. Gallen.
University Professor in Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics and the Harris School of Public Policy; Director of the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago
Michael Kremer is the chair of the Innovation Commission for Climate Change, Food Security, and Agriculture and a University Professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics at the University of Chicago, where he directs the Development Innovation Lab. He was awarded the 2019 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for the experimental approach to alleviating global poverty. His research focuses on innovation, including in education, health, water, finance, and agriculture. He has also worked extensively on how to design institutions to accelerate innovation, including through Advance Market Commitments (AMC) and social innovation funds. Michael actively translates his academic work into real-world programs. He helped to design an AMC for a pneumococcal vaccine. Subsequently three vaccines have been approved, and rolled out in 60 countries, saving an estimated 700,000 lives. As part of the Accelerating Health Technologies group, he conducted research and advised governments and international organizations on how to accelerate vaccination against COVID-19. His work on school-based deworming informed India’s national deworming day, which treats over 275 million children each year. His work on safe drinking water led to the Dispensers for Safe Water Program, which reaches 4 million people via the NGO Evidence Action. He is a co-founder of Precision Development, which leverages digital technology to improve productivity and incomes for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Michael received his PhD from Harvard University.
Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit at IFPRI
Agnes Quisumbing is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion Unit at IFPRI, where she co-leads a research program examining the impact of gender asset inequality on development outcomes. Her current work focuses on evaluating agricultural development programs in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, particularly their effects on closing the gap in men’s and women’s asset ownership and control. Agnes’s research interests include poverty, gender, property rights, and economic mobility. Her past work at IFPRI analyzed the factors contributing to long-term poverty reduction and how intrahousehold resource allocation affects development policy design and outcomes. She has led studies on intrahousehold allocation in several countries and has conducted research on women’s land rights. Agnes joined IFPRI in 1995 after working at various institutions including the University of the Philippines, the World Bank, Yale University, and the International Rice Research Institute. She holds a PhD and MA in Economics from the University of the Philippines.
Professor in Global Environmental Policy and Earth System Science in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University
Jennifer (Jen) Burney is a Professor in Global Environmental Policy and Earth System Science in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University. Her research focuses on the coupled relationships between climate and food security – measuring air pollutant emissions and concentrations, quantifying the effects of climate and air pollution on land use and food systems, understanding how food production and consumption contribute to climate change, and designing and evaluating technologies and strategies for adaptation and mitigation among the world’s farmers. Jen’s research group combines methods from physics, ecology, statistics, remote sensing, economics, and policy to understand critical scientific uncertainties in this coupled system and to provide evidence for what will – or won’t – work to simultaneously end hunger and stabilize earth’s climate. She previously served on the faculty at UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She holds a PhD in Physics from Stanford University and completed postdoctoral fellowships in food security and climate science.
Associate Professor at the University of Maryland
Jing Cai is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland. Her research areas are development economics and household finance. Her current research examines the growth of micro-enterprises and SMEs, impacts of tax incentives on firm behavior, and diffusion and impacts of financial innovations in developing countries. Jing is a Co-Chair of the firm sector of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J PAL), a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), and a fellow of the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). She currently serves as an associate editor of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the Economic Development and Cultural Change. She holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Managing Director for the Social Sciences Group and Professor of Economics at Wageningen University & Research
Joost de Laat is Managing Director for the Social Sciences Group and Professor of Economics at Wageningen University & Research. Joost is an applied microeconomist (PhD, Brown University) with a trans- and interdisciplinary research and teaching focus on poverty and sustainability in low- and middle-income countries with publications in leading academic journals. Joost worked at Harvard University and the University of Quebec at Montreal before joining the World Bank, where he managed its Strategic Impact Evaluation Fund, and Porticus, a global philanthropy. Between 2018 and 2024, Joost was Professor of Economics at Utrecht University and director of the Utrecht University Centre for Global Challenges.
Executive Director of the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC-Rio) and a Professor in the Department of Economics at PUC-Rio.
Juliano Assunção is the Executive Director of the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI/PUC Rio) and a Professor in the Department of Economics at PUC-Rio. Since 2011, he has been with CPI/PUC-Rio, working to improve climate policies in Brazil through research and engagement with policymakers and civil society. He provides strategic direction to CPI/PUC-Rio’s research and projects, focusing on land use efficiency, Forest Code compliance, the relationship between productivity and natural resource protection, and Brazil’s participation in the carbon market as a means of Amazon conservation. Juliano also coordinates the Amazon 2030 project, which aims to develop a sustainable development plan for the Brazilian Amazon by 2030. In 2024, during Brazil’s G20 presidency, he became the Technical Coordinator of the Expert Group of the G20 Task Force for Global Mobilization against Climate Change (TF-CLIMA). He holds a PhD in Economics from PUC-Rio, an MA in economics from the University of Minas Gerais.
Chaired Professor at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and a Senior Researcher (Directrice de Recherche) at
Karen Macours is a Chaired Professor at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and a Senior Researcher (Directrice de Recherche) at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment INRAE. Her research focuses on evaluating programs aimed at improving human and productive capital in developing countries, including interventions in early childhood development, health, nutrition, education, and agricultural productivity. She also works on impact assessment of agricultural R&D and related methodological issues. Karen serves as a co-editor of the Journal of Development Economics. She serves on the boards of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD) and is involved with other organizations like the Feed the Future Innovation Lab and the Weiss Fund committee. She is a Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Research Fellow and European Universities Development Network (EUDN) affiliate. She holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and previously chaired the CGIAR’s Standing Panel on Impact Assessment (SPIA).
Associate Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management
Namrata Kala is an Associate Professor of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management. Her research focuses on the intersection of economics, strategy, and organizations, with a particular emphasis on how firms and households learn about and adapt to environmental change and regulation. She explores topics such as the dynamics of competition, the role of technological change, and the management of knowledge and innovation within organizations. Namrata was a Prize Fellow in Economics, History, and Politics at Harvard University and a Postdoctoral Fellow at J-PAL. She received her PhD in Environmental Economics from Yale University in 2015. She also holds a BA (Honors) in economics from Delhi University, and an MA in international and development economics from Yale University.
Assistant Professor of Economics at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin
Raissa Fabregas is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a development economist with broad interests in understanding barriers to human capital accumulation and learning in LMICs, as well as effective scaling of policy solutions. She is particularly interested in questions of external validity, barriers to scaling up programs, and the role of evidence in policymaking. Raissa’s research examines the role of information, incentives, and social factors in shaping individual behavior and economic opportunities. Her work includes studies on the effectiveness of digital agricultural interventions for smallholder farmers, the use of television to expand education in rural communities, and the economic impacts of increased access to mobile money. As part of this work, she has engaged in policy discussions on program implementation with private, public, and NGO partners in Puerto Rico, Mexico, India, Kenya, and other developing countries. Dr. Fabregas holds a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Indian School of Business (ISB)
Shilpa Aggarwal is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Her ongoing research is focused on agricultural supply chains in India and East Africa. She also works on issues pertaining to domestic trade, microfinance, and food policy. She uses a variety of methodologies, including field experiments, quasi-experimental methods, and structural modeling, to understand and evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions. Shilpa is actively engaged in policy discussions and often collaborates with governments and NGOs to translate her findings into practical solutions. Aggarwal holds a PhD in Economics from University of California, Santa Cruz and is also an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).
Professor of Economics at New York University (NYU), jointly appointed
in the Department of Economics at NYU-NY and in the Division of Social Science at
NYU Abu Dhabi.
Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Gothenburg
and the Director of Academic Programs at the Environment for Development (EfD)
initiative
Yonas Alem is an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Gothenburg and the Director of Academic Programs at the Environment for Development (EfD) initiative. His research lies at the intersection of development microeconomics, behavioral and experimental economics, and environmental economics, with a particular focus on developing regions in Africa and South Asia. Yonas’ work explores a range of development issues, often employing experimental and behavioral approaches. His research interests include topics such as natural resource management, agricultural economics, poverty reduction, and the impact of environmental policies on livelihoods. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in developing countries, generating valuable insights into the complex challenges facing these regions. He is a researcher at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Gothenburg.
Project Study and Development Specialist
International Affairs Office,
UAE Presidential Court
Staff Member
International Affairs Office,
UAE Presidential Court
Senior Program Officer
Gates Foundation
Senior Program Officer
Gates Foundation