About me

Hi there! I’m an applied development micro-economist primarily focused on labour markets and policy evaluation in lower-income countries. I’m currently a Junior Research Fellow at the Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) based in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town (UCT), South Africa; a Consultant for the World Bank’s Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice; and a Research Associate with the Research on Socio-Economic Policy (RESEP) unit at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. From April - June 2025, I’ll be a Visiting Scholar at the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland. 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 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 Ingrid Woolard and 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 research has been published in World Development, Energy Economics, and BMC Public Health among other outlets.

I regularly do economic advisory work for multilateral organisations such as the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, and UNU-WIDER, 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 RESEP and a Research Intern in South Africa’s central bank.