PhD Topic: Decision-Making in Socioecologies of Adversity

PhD Supervisor: Dr Jennifer Sheehy Skeffington and Dr Matteo Galizzi

Julia’s research investigates how contexts of poverty and inequality shape decision-making. Specifically her work considers how financial adversity and social exclusion affect psychological processes in distinct yet mutually reinforcing ways. Her PhD explores how seemingly ‘irrational’ behaviour may be adaptive within contexts of poverty, using longitudinal data analysis and experimental methods to better understand the relationships between previous experiences of adversity, current decision-making, and life trajectories.

Prior to joining the LSE, she worked as a Senior Research Associate with Innovations for Poverty Action and the Gender Innovation Lab at the World Bank on a field experiment that explored redistributive pressures from kinship networks in Côte D'Ivoire. She also previously served as a Consulting Director at Vera Solutions where her team supported the design and implementation of data systems for social impact organizations in India and across Southern Africa.

Julia holds an MSc in Psychology of Economic Life from LSE, and a BA in Political Science with a Concentration in International Economic Development from Yale University.

Julia is an Analysing and Challenging Inequalities Scholar affiliated with LSE’s International Inequalities Institute.