Meet New Faculty

Meet Assistant Professer Mariana Laverde as she talks about choosing her field and what she is working on in the Economics Department this year.

Ph.D.
University of Chicago

Where did you grow up?
Bogota, Colombia.

What are your favorite pastimes?
I enjoy many types of amateur handcrafting, from knitting and pottery to restoring old furniture. I find the process of building something with my own hands relaxing and satisfying.

What made you decide to go into your field?
Growing up, I found myself thinking about questions related to human behavior and inequity. I'm also naturally inclined to address questions through a mathematical framework. Economics allows me to do both.

Of what work or publication are you most proud?
The main paper in my dissertation, which focuses on how students get assigned to public schools in the U.S. I had to overcome research challenges that involved much more than finding a question and a research method.

What will you work on this year?
A project that aims to understand how the ways teachers are sorted into schools impact the distribution of student test scores. We hope to contribute to understanding whether there are institutions that can help reduce the test score gap without being detrimental to teacher welfare.