Introduction
I grew up in Eggersriet, Switzerland. In 2013, I obtained my BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University (Lincoln College). After stints as a journalist, a researcher at the Swiss National Bank, an analyst at a development NGO, and a teacher in a refugee reception centre in Switzerland, I read for an MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), where I subsequently stayed for an additional year as a pre-doctoral research fellow. I completed my PhD in Economics at UC Berkeley in spring 2022 and returned to Oxford as an Associate Professor of Economics at the Economics Department and a Tutorial Fellow at Queen’s College later that year.
Teaching
I teach tutorials in Probability and Statistics and Quantitative Economics at Queen’s. At the Economics Department, I am involved in teaching the undergraduate options course in Development Economics, and I also lecture as part of the MSc in Economics for Development. In addition, I supervise a few MPhil and DPhil students each year.
Research
I conduct empirical research on migration, networks, and spatial linkages between economic agents. For instance, one of my current projects investigates to what extent co-national social networks help newly arriving refugees integrate in the local labor market and society more broadly, and how this affects local firms, workers, and politics. In another, I study how unconditional cash transfers to rural households in Kenya shape their social and economic interactions, and how the benefits of cash ripple through existing social networks within their villages.