Ashutosh Poudel is a PhD student in Applied Economics at the University of Minnesota. His research lies in public economics and applied microeconomics, with a focus on U.S. food assistance programs such as SNAP, WIC, and the National School Lunch Program. He is interested in understanding how these programs affect household food spending, program participation, and child health. His current work examines universal free school meals. He is also interested in expanding his industrial organization toolkit to better study how program design, market structure, and service delivery shape the effectiveness of public policies.

Shradha is a Ph.D. scholar in Economics at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, India. Her research interests lie at the intersection of climate change, agriculture, and child malnutrition, with a particular focus on understanding how climate vulnerability influences child nutrition and sustainable development. She is passionate about interdisciplinary research and is keen to explore evidence-based solutions to contemporary development challenges through economic research.

Epio Odette Bayala is a PhD candidate in Development Economics at the Université de Sherbrooke. Her research lies at the intersection of applied economics and environmental studies, examining how environmental and climate shocks affect well-being. Her current work explores the effects of toxic waste exposure and coastal erosion on human capital and health outcomes in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Apeksha Lal is a Research Scholar in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee. Her research interests lie in the fields of energy economics and environmental sustainability. Her doctoral research focuses on the role of energy efficiency and renewable energy in advancing sustainable development. Through her work, she seeks to contribute to evidence-based policies and strategies that support the transition toward a more sustainable and low-carbon future.

Frank Engwa is an Economist and Business Development Professional with over eight years of experience in banking, customs and logistics, procurement, research, and development. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Economics at the University of Buea, Cameroon, after earning an MBA in Global Business Administration from Doshisha University, Japan, and an MSc in Economics from the University of Bamenda.

Throughout his career, Frank has worked across the private sector and academia, with expertise in economic research, data analysis, financial management, procurement and supply chain operations, business development, and project management. He has contributed to research initiatives, taught university students, supported market expansion strategies, and led operational improvements in the banking and maritime logistics sectors.

Frank is passionate about evidence-based policymaking, sustainable development, and strengthening institutions through high-quality research and strategic partnerships. His research interests include development economics, international trade, financial inclusion, private sector development, and the application of data-driven solutions to address economic and social challenges in Africa.

Vishnu Priya. V. V. is a PhD student in Economics at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. Her research interests lie in the intersection of development economics, applied microeconomics, and health economics. Currently, she is working on a paper evaluating the impact of intra-household differences in information access on health-risk-averse behaviours among poor households in India.

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Exeter. My research lies at the intersection of development, labour, and behavioural economics, with a particular focus on how social networks shape labour market opportunities. My job market paper examines the sharing of different types of labour market information among peers and finds that competitive incentives lead individuals to withhold information, while a person’s position within the network determines whether they receive valuable information.

Sonali Singh is a PhD student in Public Policy and Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas, where her research examines the political economy of climate change and innovation policy. Her work uses causal inference methods to study patent regimes, education, and gender in India, including an evaluation of the 2005 Patents Amendment Act. She holds master's degrees in economics and in social data analytics, and trained at ICPSR (UMich), Sciences Po Paris, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Delhi University. She is a first-generation scholar. She has worked at the American Public Health Association as a Graduate Archer Fellow in Washington DC and Environment Texas, Austin.

Carolina V. Vera is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Arizona, specializing in labor economics and economic history, with secondary interests in child development and environmental economics.

Before pursuing her Ph.D., she received an M.A. in Economics from Georgetown University/Universidad Alberto Hurtado (ILADES) and a B.S. in Economics from Universidad Católica Boliviana. Her research examines how environmental shocks, public investments, and early-life policies shape inequality, mobility, and human-capital formation.

Her job market paper studies the distributional effects of the 1937 Ohio River Flood using newly constructed fine-scale flood-damage data linked to full-count Census records. Her broader research agenda also includes projects on Head Start, early childhood policy in Chile, and the long-run effects of Dust Bowl migration.

Talenta Mabasa is a lecturer in Economics at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) and a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), South Africa. Her research interests focus on financial development, institutional quality, digital finance and economic growth in emerging African economies. She holds s Master of Commerce in Economics from UKZN and has published research online arising from her master's dissertation on financial development and economic growth in Africa.

As an early- career academic, Talenta has extensive experience in teaching, curriculum development, student supervision, and quantitative analysis. Her current doctoral research investigates the nonlinear relationship between financial development and economic growth, with a particular emphasis on the roles of institutional quality and digital finance in African economies. Through her research and teaching, she aims to contribute to evidence-based policy discussions that promote inclusive and sustainable economic development across the continent.