CEDEC Bios

Guadalupe (Lupe) Bedoya is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a B.Sc. in Economics from Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. Lupe has worked in the public sector, international development organizations and has also conducted fieldwork in rural areas of Colombia and India. She worked for the Department of Economic Planning, the Ministry of Finance and the National Federation of Coffee Growers in Colombia, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in the U.S. and also for livelihood promotion organizations in India. Some of her work includes the analysis of school outcomes for participants of the Jamaican Conditional Cash Transfer Program (PATH), and early childhood development programs in Ecuador.

E-mail: gbedoya@uchicago.edu 

Pedro Bernal is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Tecnológico de Monterrey and a B.Sc. in Economics from the same university. He worked conducting program evaluation for the social development ministry in north Mexico. Currently, he is studying the effect of school quality on academic achievement, analyzing the effect of family structure on child outcomes in rural Mexico, and conducting an evaluation of the effect of access to health insurance on early childhood health outcomes.

E-mail pbernal@uchicago.edu 

Pietro Biroli is a third year Ph.D. student at the Economics department of the University of Chicago. He holds a Master of Arts in Economics from the Université Catolique de Louvain (Belgium) and a M.Sc. and a B.Sc. in Economics from Bocconi University (Italy). Pietro worked for FAO in Beijing and for DG ECFIN in the European Commission in Brussels. He is interested in migration, health and human capital. Currently he is working in Professors Heckman’s research center on the interaction between health and personality during childhood and their long run effects on human capital formation.
E-mail: biroli@uchicago.edu

 Elise Chor is a third year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Harris School and a B.A. in Politics from Pomona College. Before she began her graduate studies at the University of Chicago, she worked with one- to five-year-old children in a local Chicago preschool. The experience inspired her interest in early childhood education policy and in the potential role of early education and care experiences in narrowing long-run resource and achievement gaps. Her other research interests include the impact of preschool participation on children’s cognitive and socioemotional skill formation; the pathways of influence between early education & care and child outcomes; as well as broader child and family policy issues such as parental investments in children’s human capital and the effects of maternal employment on children’s short- and long-term well-being. She has been able to explore some of these issues and participate in program evaluations during internships with child advocacy group Voices for Illinois Children and education research consultancy group Learning Point Associates, as well as through her role as research assistant for Ariel Kalil, the director of the University of Chicago’s Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. 
E-mail: echor@uchicago.edu

Ana Sofia Lince is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from the Harris School, a B.Sc. in Economics and a B.A. in Political Science from Instituto Tecnólogico Autónomo de México. She worked for the Mexican Ministries of Education and Health, and for the Inter-American Development Bank and UNICEF. Ana Sofia is interested in the interaction between early childhood investments and the inter-generational transmission of poverty. Her current projects include: an extensive study of intergenerational socioeconomic mobility among immigrants in the U.S., the evaluation of the effect of the recently instituted Mexican public health insurance (Seguro Popular) on impoverishing health shocks, households’ smoothing consumption and children’s human capital, and the analysis of the effect of family structure on child outcomes in rural Mexico.

E-mail: asleon@uchicago.edu 

Javaeria Qureshi is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a B.A. with highest distinction in Economics and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has worked at the World Bank, the Planning and Development Department of the Government of Pakistan and has also conducted fieldwork on microfinance. Some of her current research analyzes the spillover effects of oldest sister's education on younger sibling human capital, and the effect of school quality on student achievement.

E-mail: javaeria@uchicago.edu 

Patricia (Patti) Ritter is a second year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy in Latin America from the University of Oxford and a B.Sc. in Economics from the Universidad del Pacífico in Perú. She has worked for the International Finance Corporation in Peru and for the Institution of Liberty and Democracy in Tanzania and Mexico, among others. She is interested in the formation of human capital with special interest in poor household investment decisions. Currently, she is working in two projects: the analysis of the effect of technology on human capital formation in Peru and the analysis of the relationship between attention deficit and the formation of numerical abilities in children in the UK.
E-mail: pattiritter@uchicago.edu 

Maria Fernanda Rosales is a third year Ph. D student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. She holds a Master’s in Public Policy also at the University of Chicago and a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia. She has worked at Fedesarrollo, a Colombian think tank, at the World Bank, and at the Inter-American Development Bank. She is interested in analyzing the interaction and complementarities between early child health, family investments and child and youth development in developing countries. Currently, she is working at Professor Heckman’s research center in the reanalysis of experimental evidence of a nurse home visiting program in the US that combine prenatal care, parenting education and family planning components targeted to disadvantaged mothers. Also, she participates in the impact evaluation of an NGO education program on schooling, labor markets and health outcomes in Guatemala.

E-mail: mrosales@uchicago.edu 

Jorge Ugaz is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. He holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University, and a B.Sc. in Economics from Universidad Católica del Perú. He has been a consultant for the World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where he has done research on health and human development, chronic diseases, poverty and inequality. He is currently doing research on childhood obesity and educational attainment in the US, on maternal health and child outcomes in developing countries, and estimating the role of parental time investments on various skills in children.

E-mail: jorgeugaz@uchicago.edu 

Arianna Zanolini is a fourth year Ph.D. student at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. Arianna holds a B.Sc. in Economics from Bocconi University (Italy) and an M.Sc. in Economics at the University College of London (UK). She has worked in Professor Heckman’s research center, conducted consultancy for UNICEF and done fieldwork in Cambodia, all in topics related to early childhood. Arianna is interested in the interaction between maternal investments, child health and child development and her current projects include topics such as the long term effects of health shocks, the channels linking maternal skills and infant health, the Developmental Origins of Health and Diseases and the evaluation of early childhood stimulation programs.

E-mail: azanolini@uchicago.edu