Prerna D
- Research Program Mentor
PhD candidate at George Washington University
Expertise
Education Policy, Economic Research, Data Analysis, International Development Policy, Causal Inference, Gender, Education and Human Behavior related topics
Bio
I am an economics PhD candidate from George Washington University, Washington DC. I was a pre-doc at the Indian School of Business, India before moving to the US for my PhD. My research is focused on policies to eliminate educational inequity. I am broadly interested in topics related to international development involving gender, behavioral or educational dimension to it. I am passionate about volunteer work for not-for-profits, especially in the education sector. I love baking in my free time!Project ideas
Female bargaining power in developing countries
We all grow up in different cultural contexts, observing potentially varying extent of (fe)male participation in household chores vs gainful employment. Societies differ by the social norms that are practiced locally (for eg. patrilocal vs matrilocal societies) and lead to different outcomes for males and females. One could take up a project to explore factors that explain one or more dimensions of gender gaps - educational achievement, labor force participation, average wages etc. It could also be interesting to compare two countries across these dimensions using nationally representative data from time use surveys, labor or educational achievement surveys.
Theory vs Practice. Behavioral underpinnings of decision making!
Understanding human behavior is a complex science. Theoretically, one could make predictions regarding behavior (using game-theoretic approach) but in reality, each individual has a different set of pre-conditions/preferences that lead them to take different decisions. In fact, the same person could make different decisions at two different points of time when they are primed with say, feeling richer(happier) or feeling poorer(sad) and so on. One can thus design a project to pick up any specific human trait like risk aversion or altruistic behavior and delve deeper in the literature to understand how such traits explain decision making in different contexts. For example, an ultimatum game is a simple bargaining experiment which could illustrate how people perceive fairness norms. Through a project, a student could design their own ultimatum game experiment and conduct a pilot study among their peers. Instead, a student could also adapt an existing experiment from literature and explore a different question like - Do high-performing students are more likely to help their peers in class? The scope of the project can be made more interesting by analyzing characteristics that correlate with more/less altruistic behavior, in this example. Such a experiment-led project could involve more hands-on data collection effort and looking at observational data through interesting graphs or statistical analysis methods.
Exploring the social emotional learning(SEL) outcomes among K-12 school children.
Recent literature in the education sector has steered focus towards social emotional learning outcomes among students rather than just looking at the progress in test scores. Depending on data availability, student can choose a specific school district and analyze how SEL outcomes are related with test scores and/or look at how SEL outcomes affect higher education decisions or outcomes. Alternatively, one could study the effect of any local educational policy on SEL outcomes in a specific school district in comparison to a school district where no such policy might have been implemented.
