Kelsey is the Director of emLab’s People & Poverty Program and an Associate Professor at the Bren School. She conducts research at the intersection of environmental and development economics, with a focus on how individuals, households, and communities decide to use natural resources and provide public goods. She has conducted research in numerous countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, and has ongoing work in South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, and Niger. Kelsey co-directs the King Climate Action Initiative at the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT and is an Associate Editor at the American Economic Review. Kelsey joined the Bren School after seven years as an Assistant Professor in the Economics Department at Tufts University and a postdoc at MIT with the Agricultural Technology Adoption Initiative (ATAI) at J-PAL. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public and International Affairs from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University. Before graduate school, she spent two years in Lao PDR working for IUCN. Kelsey likes interacting with people in person and riding up hills on her bike.
Environmental and Development Economist