Ana Garcia-Hernandez

Ana Garcia Hernandez is the Associate Director of Policy of the Europe office of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), where she leads the team in its efforts to bring together governments, donors, civil society organisations, and J-PAL affiliated researchers to promote the use of evidence in decision-making and synthesise lessons from randomised evaluations of social programs in Europe and beyond.

Previously, Ana worked in the partnership between J-PAL Europe, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration in Spain, and the Center for Monetary and Financial Studies (CEMFI). J-PAL and CEMFI participated as scientific advisors of the Inclusion Policy Lab, launched by the Ministry. The lab aims to generate evidence through multiple randomised evaluations of Social Inclusion and use it to inform policymaking in Spain.

Ana has been a principal investigator and co-investigator for several randomised evaluations and other studies on women’s political participation, girls’ access to education and empowerment, and ethics in development research in Uganda, Zambia, and Colombia. Before joining J-PAL, Ana was a postdoctoral researcher in a position shared between Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Colombia and Universidad del Rosario. Before she started her doctoral studies, she worked for IPA in Uganda, where she managed randomised evaluations of governance and gender.

Ana holds a PhD in Economics from NOVA SBE, an M.Sc. in Specialized Economic Analysis from Barcelona School of Economics, and a BSc in Economics from Carlos III University.