About me

Hi there! I’m an applied development micro-economist primarily focused on labour markets and policy evaluation in developing countries. I’m currently a Junior Research Fellow at the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) housed in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa. Here, you will find a depository of my work including publications, working papers, reports, and several resources I find useful.

I earned my PhD from UCT in 2024. Under the supervision of Prof Haroon Bhorat, my thesis considers the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on labour market inequalities in South Africa. I earned my undergraduate, honour’s, and master’s degrees from Stellenbosch University, with Prof Ingrid Woolard and Dr Debra Shepherd serving as my co-supervisors for the latter. My work centers around the socioeconomic causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in lower-income countries, in the South African and African contexts in particular, focusing on the roles of labour markets, social protection policy, education, and healthcare. My expertise lies in household survey and administrative data analysis, micro-econometrics with cross-sectional and panel data, and causal inference. My research has been published or is forthcoming in World Development, Energy Economics, Journal for Labour Market Research, Journal of Health Communication, Development Southern Africa, and BMC Public Health among other outlets.

I regularly do economic advisory work for several multilateral organisations including the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), and the Agence Françeise de Développement (AFD), as well as several departments of the South African government including the Presidency, National Treasury, the Department of Employment and Labour, and the Department of Higher Education and Training. Prior to joining the DPRU, I worked as a Research Assistant for the Research on Socio-Economic Policy (RESEP) unit at Stellenbosch University, which I remain affiliated with, and a Research Intern in South Africa’s central bank.