Contributors

Rajiv is a Professor of Economics at Barnard College and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. His research deals with information, beliefs, and communication among people with heterogeneous and unobserved biases. He is especially interested in stereotypes, and their impact on interactions among strangers. His book Shadows of Doubt: Stereotypes, Crime, and the Pursuit of Justice (written jointly with Brendan O’Flaherty) was published by Harvard University Press in 2019. He is an original contributor to CORE (Curriculum Open-Access Resources for Economics), an initiative aimed at the production of high-quality resources for teaching economics, distributed free of charge worldwide.

Homa is an Associate Professor of Economics at Barnard College, where she regularly teaches introductory economics, behavioral economics, the economics of gender, and on the role of narratives in economics. Her research is in the fields of behavioral and experimental economics. In recent and ongoing research, she studies how economics education affects decision-making and attitudes toward markets and government. She also studies how individuals make decisions on behalf of others, the correlates of competitive preferences, and the relationship between stated and revealed preferences.

Chris is a PhD student in economics at the University of Virginia. He is interested in development and public economics concentrated on alleviating poverty and reducing inequality. He holds an MA in Economics from Columbia University. Chris also serves as an instructor pilot in the US Navy Reserve after 11 years on active duty. In 2019 he served as the Director of Operations at a non-profit recycling center in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He holds an MBA from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and a BS in Computer Engineering from the University of Notre Dame.

Maria is a PhD student in economics at Bocconi Univeristy. She is interested in applied microeconomics, particularly the economics of education, labor, and development. She holds an MA in Economics from Columbia University, where she studied with the support of the La Caixa Fellowship. Previously she earned a BA in Economics and a BS in Mathematics and Statistics from Universidad Complutense de Madrid.

Inés is a recent alumna of Barnard College, majoring in Economics with a minor in Science and Public Policy. She is currently completing an MA degree in Quantitative Research Methods at Columbia University and is passionate about exploring career avenues at the nexus of applying data-driven economic policy research to drive equity.

Sondra graduated with an MS in Financial Engineering in 2022 from Columbia University after completing a BA in Economics and Math-Statistics in 2021 from Barnard College in an accelerated 4+1 program. Upon graduating from Barnard, she received the Beth Niemi Memorial Prize for being an outstanding graduating senior in economics. During her time at Barnard, she worked as a departmental assistant, CORE research assistant, economics tutor, teaching assistant, and content developer. Currently, Sondra is a quantitative analyst working in the Markets Analytics group at a bank.

Shefali is a graduate student in the Applied Statistics program at Teachers College. Prior to joining Teachers College, she worked with the Boston Consulting Group (on secondment from TEA) on a large-scale project to identify and build ‘role-model’ states in the school education sector in India. She is also a former Teach for India fellow (similar to Teach for America corps) and she holds a master’s equivalent in public policy from the Indian School of Public Policy. Most recently, Shefali was selected as an Education Pioneers Summer Fellow in data, where she worked on dynamic Power BI dashboards for school leaders at District of Columbia public schools. She was also selected for a graduate program at Center for Public Research and Leadership at Columbia Law School, where she worked as a graduate consultant on a curriculum change management project for six months. Post graduation, Shefali hopes to continue her work on bringing data-driven practices to the education landscape.

Olivia is an economics-computational statistics and human rights major at Barnard College. During her time at Barnard, Olivia was awarded the Sylvia Kopald Selekman Prize for doing the best work in introductory economics and second place in the national USCLAP statistics competition. Olivia is dedicated to advancing education equity and has served as Head Teaching Fellow in Barnard’s Equity Lab course. Olivia has supported hundreds of students at Title 1 high schools in earning Barnard College credits while helping them develop their passion for economics. In the coming years, Olivia hopes to pursue graduate study in the intersection of AI and development economics.

Anushka is a sophomore at Barnard College studying economics and statistics. As a Bridgewater scholar, she is interested in learning about the intersection between data analytics and financial markets. At Barnard, she was awarded the Sylvia Kopald Selekman prize for being the best freshman student of Economics. Working with Interactive Economics has given her incredible insights on how to improve accessibility to educational resources and important pedagogical skills. Anushka is also an active member of Columbia Bhangra, a South Asian dance team. She hopes to eventually go to law school or pursue a career in academia.

Miranda is an undergrad at Barnard College pursuing a BA in Economics-Statistics and Computer Science. She is especially interested in data analytics and the role of technology in economics and finance. In summer 2023, she interned at Barnard College’s Empirical Reasoning Center, where she worked on data manipulation and analysis for Make Women Count, a website highlighting different factors of economic well-being of the residents of Mississippi. Outside of Interactive Economics, she loves music and plays the flute and piano. After graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in data analytics or machine learning.

Sachi is an undergraduate at Barnard College double majoring in computer science and economics. In the future, she hopes to pursue a career in software engineering and work at the intersection of tech and finance.

Mia is a sophomore at Barnard College studying economics and psychology. She joined Interactive Economics in February 2023 in order to make economics more accessible to everyone. Mia’s favorite part about this project is finding new ways to make complex economics more understandable. Outside of Interactive Economics, Mia is a proud member of Columbia Performing Arts League and the a cappella group the Columbia Metrotones.

Ramya is currently an undergraduate student at Barnard College studying computer science and economics. She joined this project in order to make economics a more accessible and interactive learning experience for others. Ramya’s favorite aspect of this project is learning creative ways to present a topic in an understandable manner. She is expanding her programming knowledge through this project and hopes to continue learning economics throughout this project and her undergraduate career.

Anusha is a junior at Barnard College majoring in economics. As a Laidlaw Scholar, she is firmly committed to decreasing educational inequity and contributing to a future where economists have a diverse range of perspectives, both in thought and background. Her research interests lie in behavioral economics and the political economy. Through Interactive Economics, she aims to simplify economic concepts by integrating real-world examples into traditional theories. Beyond the classroom, Anusha loves to write, having published bylines at Harper’s Bazaar and copywriting a Procter & Gamble video campaign that raised $50,000 for the Navajo water crisis.

Amy graduated from Barnard College in 2023 with a BA in Economics and Mathematics. While at Barnard she worked as a research assistant and a computing fellow, and was awarded the Beth Niemi Memorial Prize for an outstanding graduating senior in economics. She is currently supporting Professor John J. Donohue’s crime and gun control policy research at Stanford Law School, with the eventual goal of pursuing a PhD in labor and welfare economics. To her, Interactive Economics exemplifies the multimodal classroom of the future: richer, more approachable, and more flexible, so that more students can appreciate and apply key concepts to their lives, regardless of educational background or fields of interest.