Ying Gao

Ying Gao is a Senior Policy Manager at J-PAL Global at MIT, where she is responsible for the Firms sector. In this capacity, her areas of focus are evidence synthesis and generation, policy engagement, partnership development, and fundraising. Her research seeks to understand the causes and consequences of economic informality in development. Other areas of interest include comparative political behavior, survey design and measurement, regional and urban economics, and policy innovation. Before graduate school, she has several years of experience in business development and finance in the private sector. More recently, she worked on stakeholder outreach and research coordination at the United Nations Human Settlements Programme based in Bangkok, Thailand.

Ying received a Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT, focusing on the political economy of development. She has a Master in City Planning from MIT and a B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.