Population, Reproductive Health, and Economic Development

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Population Reference Bureau are proud to announce the winners of the 2007 Dissertation Fellowships in Population, Reproductive Health, and Economic Development. The following candidates' proposals stood out as the best in a strong field of over 30 applications. We expect their research contributions to add significantly to the field.

The Fellowship awardees for 2007 are: 

• Javier Baez (Ph.D. candidate at the Maxwell School of Public Affairs at Syracuse University; his adviser is Dr. Dan Black). His dissertation is titled "Three Essays on Population, Risk and Children's Well-Being." Javier received his B.A. and M.A. in economics from the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia, and his M.P.A. in development economics from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. His research and teaching interests include labor economics, development economics and applied microeconometrics.
• Katherine King (Ph.D. candidate at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan; her adviser is Dr. Yu Xie). Her dissertation is titled "Structural Determinants of Health and Fertility: Spatial Methods." Katherine holds an M.A. in sociology, an M.A. in Asian studies focusing on China, and is earning an M.S. in statistics. Her interests include fertility, aging, health, education, and social stratification in China, and spatial methods in demography.
• Jean Nahrae Lee (Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Harvard University). Jean earned her B.A. in physics from Harvard University. Her dissertation focuses on the effects of contraceptive availability on economic outcomes, male involvement, and bargaining effects; and peer effects on adoption. Her research interests include development economics, applied microeconomics, corporate finance and health economics.
• Amber Peterman (Ph.D. candidate in public policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; her adviser is Dr. Sudhanshu Handa). Her dissertation is titled "Essays in Maternal and Child Health: Long-Term Health and Wealth Effects of Family Planning and Women's Property Rights in sub-Saharan Africa." Amber has a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, in economics. Her research interests include international maternal and child health policy and program evaluation.
• Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis (Ph.D. candidate in the department of economics at the University of Pennsylvania; his adviser is Dr. José-Víctor Ríos-Rull). His dissertation is titled "Aggregate Effects of HIV/AIDS on Development." Raul earned a B.A. in economics from the Universidad de Valencia (Spain) and a M.Sc. in economics from University College London.
• Rekha Varghese (Ph.D. candidate in public policy from the University of Chicago; her advisers are Dr. Robert Lalonde and Dr. Marcos Rangel). Her dissertation is titled "Welfare Consequences of Coresidence with the Mother-in-Law on Women and Children: Evidence From India and Bangladesh." Rekha has worked professionally for the government of India in a variety of positions. She earned a B.A. and a M.A. in economics from Mahatma Gandhi University, and a M.P.P. from the University of Chicago.

The Hewlett/PRB Dissertation Fellowships support dissertation research on topics that examine how population dynamics and family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) influence economic development, including economic growth, poverty reduction, and equity.

2006 Fellowship Awards

• Ernesto Amaral (University of Texas, Austin), "Demographic Transition and Economic Development at the Local Level in Brazil." (PDF: 400KB)
• Tony Ao (Harvard University), "Microeconomic Impact HIV Disease Among Female Bar/Hotel Workers in Tanzania."
• Marjorie Opuni-Akuamoa (Johns Hopkins University) "Young Adult Mortality and the Wellbeing of Older Persons: Evidence from Kwa-Zulu-Natal."
• Ali Protik (Brown University), "Old Age Support, Marriage, and Migration in Rural Bangladesh." (PDF: 392KB)

For more information, contact:

Rachel Nugent, Ph.D.
Center for Global Development
1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-416-0738; rnugent@cgdev.org