Shawn Powers

Shawn Powers joined J-PAL in 2011 and manages the Education and Labor Markets programs, which include J-PAL’s Post-Primary Education Initiative and Youth Initiative. Shawn also works on policy publications, cost-effectiveness analysis, and outreach to disseminate lessons from J-PAL evaluations to the policy community. He has worked on evaluations of Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) electricity projects in Tanzania and of grassroots development projects in the Philippines as a Fulbright Scholar. Shawn worked for three years in the domestic anti-hunger network, serving as an Emerson National Hunger Fellow and later as the Director of Advocacy at Food Bank of Alaska in Anchorage, AK. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Williams College; an M.Phil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, where he was a 2008 Gates Scholar; and an M.P.A. in Economics and Public Policy from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Shawn Powers will discuss many of the lessons we have learned in primary education, and the major gaps in knowledge in post-primary education.