Program Fellows

The Fellowship Awardees for 2011 are as follows:

1. Benjamin Capistrant: PhD candidate in Social Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. The title of his dissertation is “Global and U.S.-based Variations in Social, Health, and Economic Impacts of Family Caregiving.” He plans on examining the prevalence of caregiving in the United States, Mexico, Ghana, South Africa, Russia, India, and the People’s Republic of China, its connection to gender, and its effects on employment. He earned his BA in History and Political Science at Boston University, and his MS in Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

2. Chama Mirriam Chitalu: PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. The title of her dissertation is “Maternal and Child Health Outcomes in Zambia: Investigating Poverty, Equity and Demand Effects.” She plans to investigate how changes in poverty affect Zambian maternal and child health, especially analyzing equity effects in the utilization of health services. She earned her BA in Economics and Statistics at the University of Zambia, and her MA in Economics at the University of Botswana.

3. Maria Gabriela Farfan Bertran: PhD candidate in Economics at Duke University. The title of her dissertation is “Women, Children, and the Dynamics of Conditional Cash Transfers.” She plans on assessing the impact of the anti-poverty program Oportunidades on child nutrition, and to evaluate the extent that impact can be attributed to an empowering of women in Mexico. She earned her BA in economics at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo in Argentina, and her MA in Economics at Duke University.

4. Bouba Housseini: PhD candidate in Economics at Université Laval in Canada. The title of his dissertation is “Life Expectancy, Demographic Changes and Welfare: The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa during the Last Half-Century.” He plans on exploring the effect of population size and longevity on social welfare and public policies. He earned his University degree in Mathematics and Physics at the Université Ibn Tofail de Kenitra in Morocco, and his MS in Statistics at the Institut National de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée in Morocco.

5. Muhammad Farfan Majid: PhD candidate in Economics at the University of California, Riverside. The title of his dissertation is “Long-term Effects of Early Childhood Environment.” He plans on addressing the effects of maternal fasting and in utero health on children’s labor market outcomes. He earned his BA in Economics and Mathematics at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan, and his MA in Microeconomics and Econometrics at Washington University in St. Louis.

6. Nkechi Onuoha: PhD candidate in Economics at Clark University. The title of her dissertation is “Determinants of Fertility and Poverty in Ghana.” She plans on researching Ghana’s key determinants of fertility rates, such as space and geographic location, and its connection to factors of poverty and inequality. She earned her BA in Economics at the University of Ghana, and her MA in Economics at Clark University.

7. Evan Peet:  PhD candidate in Economics at Duke University. The title of his dissertation is “Essays on Water in Developing Countries.” He plans on examining the impact of piped water on population, reproductive health, and economic prosperity in Indonesia. He earned his BA in Economics at Brigham Young University, and his MA in Economics at Duke University.

8. Christie Sennott: PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The title of her dissertation is “Childbearing and Motherhood in the Context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa.” She plans on investigating childbearing patterns among rural South African women, especially the relationship between HIV prevalence, AIDS mortality, and antiretroviral therapies. She earned both her BA and MA in Sociology at the University of Missouri.

9. Margaret Triyana: PhD candidate in Public Policy at the University of Chicago. The title of her dissertation is “The Effects of Community-Based Interventions on Women and Children’s Health in Indonesia.” She plans on exploring the impact of midwifery and community block grants on maternal mortality and child malnutrition. She earned both her B.A in Economics and Mathematics and her MA in Economics at the University of Chicago.

The Fellowship Awardees for 2010 are as follows:

1. Ava Gail Cas: PhD candidate in Public Policy / Economics at Duke University. The title of her dissertation is "Why is Infant Formula Marketing so Controversial? Effect on Breastfeeding and Later Life Outcomes of Children." She will examine how breastfeeding affects the health and economic well-being of children later in life and what makes these effects persist. She earned her BS in Statistics at the University of the Philippines and her MA in International Development from the International University of Japan.
   
2. Neha Gondal: PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at Rutgers University. The title of her dissertation is "Lower Fertility Rates, Smaller Family Sizes, and Social Networks: A Cross-Cultural Investigation." She proposes to analyze the effects of lower fertility rates, as they are manifested in smaller-sized families, on the structure of social networks in which individuals are embedded. She received her MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics and her MA in Sociology at Rutgers University.
   
3. Erick Gong: PhD candidate in the Agriculture & Resource Economics Department at UC Berkeley. The title of his dissertation is "HIV/AIDS, Life Expectancy, and Fertility and Savings Decisions: How Shocks to Life Expectancy Affect Behavior.” He will examine how changes in life expectancy caused by HIV/AIDS affect fertility and savings decisions and the role of competing risks in determining life expectancy when HIV/AIDS is prevalent. He received his MA in Economics from NYU and his BA in Economics from UC Berkeley.
   
4. Jeffrey Greenbaum: PhD candidate in Economics at UC Berkeley. The title of his dissertation is "Essays in Child Labor, Fertility, and the Rise of Public Education in the U.S. South: Causes and Consequences.” He will look at to what extent marriage and age-of-consent laws reduce teenage marriage and fertility and what the effect is of early marriage and fertility on reproductive health, education attainment and labor supply. He received his S.B. in Economics & Mathematics from MIT.
   
5. Monica Jain: Monica Jain: PhD candidate in the Department of Economics at the University of California Riverside. The title of her dissertation is "Child Development Program, Child Health, Women's Labor Supply and Education of Older Female Children in India. Her dissertation will focus on three topics - firstly, to evaluate impact of supplementary nutrition through India's child development program on child health; second, to assess impact of nutrition counseling through the same program on reproductive outcomes; and finally, measure the cost of malnourished children in terms of women's labor supply and educational attainment of older female children. She received her MA and MPhil in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics in India.
   
6. Rania Salem: PhD candidate in Sociology/Demography from Princeton University. The title of her dissertation is "Economies of Courtship: Gender, Work, and Material Transactions Between Brides and Grooms in Egypt." She will examine how changes in marriage behavior affect the labor force participation of Egyptian women. She will also examine if material prerequisites for marriage exacerbate or ameliorate socioeconomic inequalities. She obtained her BA in Political Science at the American University in Cairo and her MSc in Sociology at Oxford University.
   
7. Shinsuke Tanaka: PhD candidate in Economics at Boston University. The title of his dissertation is "Effects of gaining access to health infrastructure and the economic impacts of early childhood nutrition: Evidence of Post-Apartheid South Africa." He examines whether increased access to health infrastructure leads to better health status among children, and whether early-life investments in health have long-term payoffs in human capital development, such as education and labor market outcomes. He has his MA in International and Development Economics from Yale University and a BA in Liberal Arts/Economics from Soka University of America.

The Fellowship Awardees for 2009 are as follows:

1. Chalachew Desta Getahun, PhD candidate in Geography at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia. He earned a BA in Geography at Kotebe College. The title of his dissertation is "Population and Development in Ethiopia: Investigating the Impact of Fertility Trends on Household Economy." He will investigate to what extent and how population change (in terms of fertility) influences economic wellbeing and poverty conditions at individual and household levels in Ethiopia.

2. Jonas Hjort, PhD candidate in Economics at the University of California at Berkeley. He earned a MA in International Development Economics from Yale University and a BSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. The title of his dissertation is "Female Empowerment, Intra-Household Decision-Making, Fertility and Economic Development in East Africa." He will look at the effect of female employment on (fertility and other) intra-household decision-making, and ensuing income trends.

3. Zoe McLaren, PhD candidate in Economics and Policy at the University of Michigan. She double majored in Government and Environmental Biology at Dartmouth College. The title of her dissertation is "The economic impact of HIV in South Africa." She seeks to understand how access to anti-retroviral drugs affect employment outcomes in South Africa and the employment impact of being HIV+.

4. Scott McNiven, PhD candidate at the University of California at Davis in Agriculture and Resource Economics. He has a MS in Agriculture and Applied Economics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. The title of his dissertation is "Social Networks and the Diffusion of Information and Technology in a Biofortification Program in Uganda." He will study how social networks can promote child and maternal health.

5. Plamen Valentino Nikolov, PhD candidate in Health Economics at Harvard University. He has a MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins University and a BA in Mathematics and Economics from Ohio Wesleyan University. The title of his dissertation is "The Contribution of Health in Utero to Capacity Formation, Education and Economic Outcomes: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania " He will examine how in utero brain development due to micronutrient deficiency (B6, B12, and folic acid) affect child cognitive development and schooling attainment in Tanzania. To execute this strategy, he will use data from a previous medical randomized trial.

6. Nkang Moses Nkang, PhD candidate in Agricultural Economics at the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. He also earned a BA and MS in Economics at the University of Calabar, Nigeria. The title of his dissertation is "Demographic Change, Economic Growth, Income Distribution and Poverty in Nigeria: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis." He will examine to what extent does demographic change impact economic growth, income distribution and poverty in the Nigerian context.

7. Gil Shapira, PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He has a BA in Economics from Columbia University. The title of his dissertation is "How Beliefs about HIV Affect Fertility, Infant and Child Mortality, and Child Schooling Decisions in Rural Malawi." His research interests focus on understanding how individual beliefs about one's own health status affect critical reproduction and intergenerational human capital investment decisions in Malawi, a sub-Saharan African country with high HIV prevalence.

8. Joshua Wilde, PhD candidate in Economics at Brown University. He has a BA from Brigham Young University in Economics. The title of his dissertation is "Essays on Population and Economic Development." He will examine the effect on population size on income per capita in the presence of fixed factors and the effect of fertility decline on income per capita.

The Fellowship Awardees of the 2008 cohort are as follows:

1. Joseph Babigumira, PhD candidate at the University of Washington. The title of his dissertation is "Economic Impact of Unsafe Induced Abortion in Uganda." He is investigating if unsafe induced abortions lead to negative economic consequences and the extent of the same in Uganda. He is also investigating whether a comprehensive national contraceptive program to prevent unintended pregnancy is cost-effective.


2. Winne Fung, PhD candidate at Harvard University. The title of her dissertation is "Intergenerational and Long-Term Effects of Maternal Malnutrition on Children's Health and Economic Outcomes." She is focusing on the causal effects of maternal malnutrition on children's health and economic outcomes, and determining the mechanisms behind such a causal link using evidence from the 1959-61 China Famine and from the Islamic practice of Ramadan fasting.


3. Kelly Jones, PhD candidate at UC Berkeley. The title of her dissertation is "The importance of Reproductive Health Services: Lessons from the Global Gag Rule." She is focusing on how the Global Gag Rule changed access to a range of reproductive health services in several African countries and will determine the impacts of these services on child health and development.


4. Grace Kumchulesi, PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Cape Town. The title of her dissertation is "Marriage, Labor Supply and Assortative Mating in South Africa." She is investigating if marriages in South Africa follow an assortative pattern by wages or whether they are randomly sorted.


5. Adebola Orimadegun, PhD candidate in the Department of Epidemiology, Medical Statistics and Environmental Health at the University of Ibadan. The title of his dissertation is "Economic Cost and Social Consequences of Living with AIDS Orphans on Households in Selected Rural and Urban Communities in South-Western Nigeria: A Cohort Study of Cost Analyses and Coping Strategies." He is examining the microeconomic costs and social consequences of living with an HIV/AIDS orphan on households and how that impacts families.


6. Uma Radhakrishnan, PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. The title of her dissertation is "A Dynamic Structural Model of Contraception Use and Employment Sector Choice for Women in Indonesia." She is investigating the impact of the family planning program in Indonesia on labor force participation decisions of women.


7. Akintunde Sade Temitope, PhD candidate in Economics at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State Nigeria. The title of her dissertation is "Effects of Mortality and Fertility on Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa (1970 – 2005)." She is investigating the trends and patterns of mortality and fertility rates in Sub-Saharan Africa and examining if the mortality and fertility rates are contributing positively or negatively to the economic growth in that region.


8. Gauthier Tshiswaka-Kashalala, PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Pretoria. The title of his dissertation is "Reproductive Health, Labor Outcomes and Pro-Poor Growth in South Africa: A Micro-Simulation." He is examining the causality between reproductive health outcomes and pro-poor growth in South Africa.