CID’s Visiting Researcher Program: Advancing Research on Mental Health, Youth Development, and Education

Luca Parisotto joined the Harvard Center for International Development in Fall 2025 as a research fellow sponsored by CID's Visiting Researcher Program. With sponsorship from UniCredit Foundation, this program brings postdoctoral and PhD student researchers from the UniCredit Bank’s extensive European network to CID. Program participants have the opportunity to join CID’s vibrant research community and learn from leading Harvard faculty and researchers. Here, he reflects on his time at CID and the impact it has had on his research.

Where are you from, and how have you ended up here at CID?

I am an Italian PhD candidate at Bocconi University in Milan. Before enrolling in the PhD program, I worked in the Development Economics Research Group at the World Bank. I was drawn to CID at the Harvard Kennedy School because of its emphasis on bringing together academics and practitioners across disciplines, which I think is especially important in order to do good research in development economics. The UniCredit Fellowship provided the perfect opportunity! 

What does your research focus on?

I am an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of health and labor economics. I mainly use experimental methods to evaluate the impact of potential policy interventions. During my PhD, I’ve been especially interested in the role of mental health in shaping economic outcomes for young people. My recent work includes randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of mental health interventions on human capital accumulation for adolescent girls in Uganda, and on the labor market outcomes of unemployed youth in Ethiopia. 

Here at CID, we are united around our mission of building a thriving world for all. How will your research propel this mission forward?

My research has focused on studying the economic impact of interventions addressing mental health and psychological well-being. While such interventions are increasingly recognized as potentially transformative, there are still important open questions about their long-run impacts and cost-effectiveness. 

By focusing on adolescents and young people, who face high levels of psychological distress and who are at a critical stage of the formation of their lifetime human capital, I hope to generate evidence on when and how these interventions can be most effective. I am particularly interested in the idea that targeting support during key transitions, such as the move from school and into the labor market, has the potential to generate long-lasting benefits. In my job market paper, I am evaluating a psychological support intervention for unemployed youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, who are searching for their first job after graduation.

What has most surprised you about living in Cambridge/Boston?

I was struck by how international and interdisciplinary the Harvard Kennedy School truly is. I’ve had great discussions with people who are working on related topics, but who were approaching them from very different perspectives and methodologies.

Has this experience helped inform your research? If so, how?

This experience has been extremely helpful for my research. I began the fellowship with what I thought was a fairly clear vision for my main PhD project, but through presentations and discussions at CID, I ended up making a number of significant changes, including adding an entirely new treatment arm! Overall, the fellowship has been a very positive and formative experience.

Where are They Now? 

An update from Dilnovoz Abdurazzakova, one of CID's inaugural fellows from the Visiting Researcher Program.

After spending a year as a PhD Research Fellow at the Harvard Center for International Development (CID), my work has continued to grow in exciting ways. I am now a Research Fellow at J-PAL Europe, where I coordinate several research projects in Uzbekistan while completing my PhD in Economics at Central European University in Vienna. Much of my current work builds directly on the research I began during my fellowship at CID, which focused on understanding how social norms shape young people’s educational and career aspirations.

At CID, I designed and ran a field experiment across 58 public schools in Uzbekistan to explore whether changing students’ perceptions of family–career balance could influence their long-term goals, especially for girls. We introduced students to STEM professionals whose spouses also work in high-income STEM fields. The results were striking: when girls saw real examples of families successfully balancing demanding careers and home life, their interest in pursuing ambitious, high-income careers grew significantly, and so did their enrollment in STEM courses. Boys also responded positively, showing a higher likelihood of staying in school and planning for higher education.

These early findings have motivated a new wave of work. Together with Professors Michela Carlana and Asim Khwaja, I am now developing a next stage of this research—supported by an LAI grant—to further support girls’ participation in STEM fields in Uzbekistan. It’s an exciting opportunity to turn research findings into practical, real-world impact, and to continue building the evidence base for policies that empower students, families, and schools.