By CID Staff
The Harvard Center for International Development (CID) is pleased to welcome a distinguished new cohort of fellows for the 2025 academic year. Fellows bring a wealth of global experience and diverse perspectives that strengthen CID’s research, teaching, and engagement with real-world development challenges.
This fall’s fellows include:
- Mr. Muhamad Chatib Basri, former Minister of Finance of Indonesia and former Chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board
- Mme. Bineta Diop, international women’s rights advocate and peacebuilder
- Mr. Gomez Agou, Senior Economist and IMF Resident Representative in Gabon
- Ms. Gabby Stern, former Director of Communications at the World Health Organization
They join CID’s vibrant community of Predoctoral Fellows, Visiting PhD and Postdoctoral Fellows, and participants in the Visiting Researcher Program and China and the Global Economy Initiative.
“I’m delighted to welcome our new cohort of fellows to CID — a distinguished group of practitioners from around the world. Their deep experience and on-the-ground perspectives will not only strengthen our research and practice but also create unique learning opportunities for our students. Together, they will help enrich the vibrant CID community and advance our mission of driving inclusive, evidence-based development.”
— Asim Khwaja, Director, Harvard Center for International Development
Senior Fellows typically lead a CID Student Seminar, offering Harvard students opportunities to learn directly from global practitioners. This fall, five seminars will be led by fellows, including Bineta Diop, Pak Chatib Basri, Gomez Agou, Wasim Tahir, and Vishnu Venugopalan, with additional seminars planned for the spring semester.
In Fall 2025, CID Welcomes:
Gomez Agou, Senior Research Fellow
Gomez Agou recently concluded his term as IMF Resident Representative in Gabon. He has 18 years of experience working with the IMF, the World Bank, and the Ministry of Good Governance in Côte d'Ivoire. Throughout his career, he has contributed to significant initiatives, including the debt relief program for Côte d'Ivoire (2007-2012), the development plan for Indonesia (2014), the economic recovery in Tunisia (2014-2018), and providing economic policy advice during the COVID-19 crisis in Ghana.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Carmen Reinhart
Youssef Assarssah, CID Research Fellow
Youssef Assarssah is working on the evaluation of programs in job training, cash transfers, and social protection. Prior to joining CID, he worked at the Morocco Innovation and Evaluation Lab (J-PAL), where he supported the implementation and analysis of a large-scale education intervention. His research interests center on how evidence can inform effective policy for poverty alleviation and inclusive development.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Rema Hanna
Muhamad Chatib Basri, CID Visiting Scholar
Muhamad Chatib Basri is the former Minister of Finance of Indonesia and former Chairman of the Indonesian Investment Coordinating Board, currently serving on the National Economic Council of the President of the Republic of Indonesia, the country’s top advisory body composed of academics, business leaders, investment bankers, and former senior officials. He is Co-Chair of the Pandemic Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, hosted by the World Bank and supported by the WHO. He also serves on the Governing Board of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Rema Hanna
Ornella Darova, CID Postdoctoral Fellow, Visiting Researcher Program
Ornella Darova is an applied microeconomist specializing in development economics, education economics of education, and social program evaluation. Her research agenda focuses on how language policy, diversity, and social dynamics shape educational outcomes and social integration in multilingual and multiethnic contexts. In her work, she uses structural, experimental, and quasi-experimental methods. Ornella holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MSc in Economic and Social Sciences from Bocconi University.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Asim Khwaja and Alejandro Ganimian
Bineta Diop, Research Fellow at CID and the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School
Madam Bineta Diop is a long-time Senegalese women’s rights activist, with more than 40 years of experience in human rights, peace, and development issues, including 20 years at the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and 10 years as the African Union Special Envoy on Women, Peace and Security. She is the Founder and President of Femmes Africa Solidarité (FAS), an international NGO founded in 1996 in Switzerland, that seeks to foster, strengthen, and promote the leadership role of women in conflict prevention, management, and resolution in Africa.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Fatema Sumar
Magnus Eldrup, CID PhD Fellow
Magnus Eldrup is a PhD student in Economics at the University of Copenhagen. His research lies at the intersection of public and development economics, focusing on how the unique labor-market structures of developing countries shape optimal tax design with respect to both efficiency and fairness concerns. His projects span multiple countries with a primary focus on East Africa.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Anders Jensen
Sebastian Garcia Torres, CID Research Fellow
Sebastian Garcia-Torres’s work focuses on gender norms in South Asia and on projects related to the integration of migrants into host communities. Prior to joining CID, Sebastian worked as a research assistant at the John F. Kennedy Institute of Freie Universität Berlin. His research interests include political economy, gender economics, economic history, and development economics. Previous work by Sebastian and his co-authors on women’s representation and the COVID-19 pandemic has been published in Economic Policy.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Eliana La Ferrara
Mert Geyiktepe, CID Research Fellow, Reimagining the Economy
Mert Geyiktepe’s research interests include economic growth, political economy, and macroeconomics. Prior to joining CID, he worked as a research assistant for Professor Melissa Dell at Harvard University as an undergraduate.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Dani Rodrik
Sarthak Kwatra, CID Research Fellow
Sarthak Kwatra's research focuses on topics in economic history, firm behavior, and political economy. Prior to his work at CID, Sarthak worked as an research assistant to Professor Nathan Nunn at the University of British Columbia.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Asim Khwaja and Ebehi Iyoha
Luca Parisotto, CID PhD Fellow, Visiting Researcher Program
Luca Parisotto is a PhD candidate in Economics at Bocconi University. His research lies at the intersection of development and labour economics, with a focus on social protection, sexual and reproductive health, and mental health. He is particularly interested in how policies that support young people at critical stages in their lives can improve their long-term outcomes. Before starting his PhD, he worked in the World Bank's Development Research Group.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Asim Khwaja and Livia Alfonsi
Victo Silva, CID Postdoctoral Fellow, Reimagining the Economy
Victo Silva works at the intersection of development policy, platform studies, and the digital political economy. His work examines how digital platforms and AI transform capitalism and reshape the developmental challenges of the Global South. Before joining CID, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Interdisciplinary Hub for Digitalization and Society (iHub) at Radboud University, where he worked on multidisciplinary projects on platform governance, innovation policy, and gig work.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Dani Rodrik
Gabby Stern, CID Research Fellow
Gabriella Stern recently retired as Director of Communications at the World Health Organization, where she led the organization’s global communications strategy, managed a team of communications professionals, and served as spokesperson for the Director-General. Gabby joined WHO in March 2019 after more than three years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Earlier in her career, Gabby was a journalist and spent almost 25 years at The Wall Street Journal.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Asim Khwaja
Zhaoguang Wang, CID Postdoctoral Fellow, China and the Global Economy Initiative
Zhaoguang Wang’s research focuses on political economy and digital economics. Recently, he studied the causes and consequences of law enforcement in China, particularly how technology reshapes enforcement capabilities.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Jie Bai, David Yang, Jaya Wen
Lukas Worku, CID PhD Fellow
Lukas Worku is a PhD fellow visiting from Tampere University, Finland. He is also affiliated with Finnish Centre of Excellence in Tax Systems Research (FIT). His research focuses on public economics as he is currently working in projects related to taxation of small firms and alcohol policies. His other research interests are in the fields of labor and behavioral economics.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Anders Jensen
Jingchen “Edmund” Zhu, CID PhD Fellow, China and the Global Economy Initiative
Jingchen Zhu is a PhD student in Economics at the Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. His research interests lie at the intersection of behavioral economics, labor economics, and organizational economics, with a particular focus on how social preferences shape economic behavior and outcomes, and how these preferences evolve across different contexts.
CID Faculty Sponsor: Jie Bai, David Yang, Jaya Wen
CID is grateful to this group of fellows from around the world, representing research interests in education, gender inequality, finance, employment, and social policy, for enriching the community of faculty, students, and staff who are committed to building a thriving world for all.
Read more about current fellows at CID and CID's research programs.
Miguel Reyes
