I am an economist who studies policy innovation. These days I spend my time researching the causes and effects of international migration, advising public officials on how migration can work better for everyone, and empowering future policy leaders.

Based in Washington, DC, I serve as a Professor of Economics and founding faculty at the School of Government & Policy, Johns Hopkins University, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

I am also a fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics at LISER in Luxembourg, an External Research Fellow at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at University College London and RFBerlin, and an invited member of the Research and Policy Network on the Political Economy of Migration at the Centre for Economic Policy Research in London/Paris.

My professional home for much of my early career was the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC, where I founded the Migration & Development program and where I remain a Distinguished Non-Resident Fellow. I served from 2023–2026 as full professor with tenure in the Dept. of Economics at George Mason University. I hold a Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at Harvard University.