Date/Time
Date(s) - 09/05/2022
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm

Dr. Dean Karlan will receive the 2022 Chanchlani Global Health Research Award and present the lecture When Wonky Works: Success, Failures and Learning Gaps in Implementation
Science for Public Policy. In his lecture, he will discuss his research on microeconomic issues of poverty, which has influenced innovation in public policy to end global poverty. He will explore the implementation of interventions by highlighting what works and what does not in sustainable income generation for those in poverty, as well as health behaviour and charitable giving. He will ask us to think about the challenges and opportunities in scaling-up successful ideas while stimulating students, faculty and leaders to think about global poverty solutions.

Karlan is the co-director of the Global Poverty Research Lab at Northwestern University and president of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems. His research focuses on development and behavioral economics, typically using experimental methods to examine questions about poverty and behavior change. As a social entrepreneur, he founded, and is currently president of, Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA), a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems and working to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. IPA has conducted over 830 evaluations with over 600 leading researchers in 51 countries and works throughout the world to help increase the demand for and use of evidence in policy. Karlan also co-founded stickK.com, a website that uses lessons from behavioral economics to help people reach personal goals and ImpactMatters, a nonprofit dedicated to providing donors with charity ratings based on estimates of impact. Karlan has been a core researcher of the M.I.T. Jameel Poverty Action Lab since its founding and is now on the executive committee of its Board of Directors.

Karlan received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He also received distinguished alumni awards from the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business (Public Service Award) and the Duke University Talent Identification Program. Karlan has co-authored four books: More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty (2011); Economics, a principles textbook (3rd edition, 2020), Failing in the Field (2016) and The Goldilocks Challenge (2018).