Luisa Costa

Luisa Costa is a Senior Research Associate at J-PAL LAC, where she researches the impact of financial services on small businesses in Brazil. Her current work examines the adoption of PIX by small entrepreneurs and its effects on credit access, formalization, and profitability.

Before joining J-PAL in 2024, Luisa was a Specialist Policy Researcher at Latin America’s largest digital bank, Nubank, where she worked on enhancing financial inclusion in Brazil. She has also held leadership roles in the Minas Gerais State Government, including serving as the Director of Educational Assessment, evaluating education policies impacting over 2 million students in Brazil.

Luisa holds a master of science in policy evaluation from the University of Oxford, where she was awarded the prestigious Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarship. She also has a bachelor's degree in public administration from Fundação João Pinheiro and a specialist degree in statistics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG).