Centre announcements

New staff
Conference and Seminar presentations
Awards

We welcome our new staff members:

April, 2023

Monisha Biswas

Monisha Biswas joined CDES as an Administrative Officer from 1 February 2023.

Dr Biswas has a PhD in information technology and has previously worked as a research manager in large international organisations including Oxfam, ActionAid and UNDP.

Her PhD thesis title is: “'The role of mobile technologies in the sustainability of women-led micro-enterprises and women's empowerment in rural Bangladesh”.'.

Dr Biswas replaced Shahab Sazegar, who is continuing his job at the Impact Labs at the Monash Business School.

2023

CDES co-hosted the 2023 Summer School in Development Economics jointly with the Italian Association of Development Economist (SITES) and the Department of Economics of Verona University on June 26-28 in Monastero San Leonardo - Villa del Palco, Prato, Italy. This 12th edition of the summer school offered young researchers (PhD students and post-docs) mentoring opportunities and exposure to cutting‐edge empirical and theoretical research in development economics by invited senior high-profile academics. The summer school was a great success with very positive feedback from both junior and senior researchers. High profile speakers: Debraj Ray (New York University), Lucia Corno (Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), Gabriella Conti (University College London), Gaia Narciso (Trinity College Dublin), Lorenzo Casaburi (University of Zurich), Jenny Aker (Tufts University) and Wendy Janssens (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).We look forward to organising the summer school’s next edition in June 2024.
Prof Asad Islam visited the University of Washington in Seattle and the University of British Columbia, and gave two seminars - one on education spillover within students social networks, and another addressing mental health issues of refugee mothers and children. He also gave a seminar to students in North South University in Dhaka, Bangladesh on higher education research in economics, and developing a career as an academic in economics and related disciplines.
Armand Sim presented a paper (“Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Using Local Ambassadors: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Indonesia”) on policy dissemination webinar (Lessons from COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts and Mitigation in Indonesia) on February 24th.
Asad Islam gave online presentation at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on ‘using a low-tech solution to offer remote learning in Nepal’ (in January), a keynote presentation at Khulna University on ‘addressing learning loss’ (in January), a pre-conference day-long workshop on ‘running randomized controlled trials in developing countries’ at the AARES in Christchurch, an invited conference presentation on ‘value of information in technology adoption’ at the AARES in Christchurch, and an invited seminar at Deakin University on centrality-based spillover effects in education (March)
Wang Lee presented a paper at the Association for the Study of Religion, Economics, and Culture (ASREC) conference held at Monash on 23-24 March entitled “Religiosity and Crime: Evidence from Pope Francis’s Visit to Philadelphia” (joint with David Johnston and Umair Khalil).
Emilia Tjernstrom to give seminar on March 29 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she will present her paper "Selection and Heterogeneity in the Returns to Migration” (with co-authors Eduardo Cenci and Marieke Kleemans).
CDES hosted the 12th edition of the Summer School in Development Economics jointly with the Italian Association of Development Economist (SITES) and the Department of Economics of Verona University on June 26-28 in Monastero San Leonardo - Villa del Palco, Prato, Italy. The event offered young researchers (PhD students and post-docs) mentoring opportunities and exposure to cutting‐edge empirical and theoretical research in development economics by invited senior high-profile academics. The summer school was a great success with very positive feedback from both junior and senior researchers. High profile speakers: Debraj Ray (New York University), Lucia Corno (Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), Gabriella Conti (University College London), Gaia Narciso (Trinity College Dublin), Lorenzo Casaburi (University of Zurich), Jenny Aker (Tufts University) and Wendy Janssens (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). We look forward to organising the summer school’s next edition in June 2024.

Congratulations to CDES Senior Research Fellow Emilia Tjernström and her co-authors (Samuel S. Bird, Michael R. Carter, Travis Lybbert, Timothy Njagi, Mary Mathenge) on winning the AAEA Africa Section Best Publication award for 2022!

Here is their paper, titled Filling a niche? The maize productivity impacts of adaptive breeding by a local seed company in Kenya, for anyone who is interested in taking a look.

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