Sheryl Ball is a Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech with appointments in Neuroscience and psychology. Her research uses theories and methods from Behavioral Economics, Experimental Economics, and Neuroeconomics. Her work explores individual decision-making and strategic behavior, for example, some of her current work asks how attention and physiological arousal are related to risk preferences. Dr. Ball received her bachelor’s degree with honors in mathematical methods in social sciences, and her masters and doctoral degrees in managerial economics and decision sciences from Northwestern University. She has served as Associate Dean at the Virginia Tech College of Science.

Jessica Leight is a Senior Research Fellow in the Poverty, Gender, and Inclusion unit at IFPRI; previously, she served as an assistant professor of economics at American University from 2017 to 2019 and Williams College from 2013 to 2017. She received a Ph.D. in economics at MIT in 2013, a M.Phil. in Economics at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar in 2008, and a B.A. from Yale University in 2006. Her research agenda focuses on human capital accumulation for women and girls as well as agricultural institutions and structural transformation, and has been funded by the Macarthur Foundation, the Fondation de France, USAID, the Department of Labor, and a number of other donors. She has conducted or is actively conducting fieldwork in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Mozambique.

Alice Tianbo Zhang is an Assistant Professor of Economics and an affiliate faculty of Environmental Studies at Washington and Lee University. As an environmental and energy economist, she combines economics, climate science, and data science to tackle energy and climate policy issues. Her current research focuses on two areas 1) distributional impacts of energy infrastructure and energy access; 2) climate change impact, mitigation, and adaptation. More broadly, she is interested in harnessing economics for social and environmental equity. Prior to joining W&L, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University. She obtained a PhD from Columbia University and a B.A. in Economics, Statistics, and a minor in Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. You can read more about her work at https://www.alicetianbozhang.com/ and follow her on
Twitter: @AliceTZhang

I am an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy and Economics Program at Oregon State University. I am also a Research Fellow at IZA (Institute for the Study of Labor), an Invited Researcher for the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL), and a Fellow of the Global Labor Organization (GLO). My research areas are development economics, labor economics, and the economics of education. My current work focuses on education policy in developing countries (including Rwanda, The Gambia, and India), and promoting student success in higher education in the U.S.

am a macroeconomist and monetary economist currently focused on financial stability issues. I have 25+ years of experience in public service; I have also spent some time teaching (in spring 2022, I taught a class at Yale). I have published a number of papers and worked with economists and research assistants from a range of backgrounds. More on my background can be seen on my personal webpage.