Dean Karlan
Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance; Co-Director, Global Poverty Research Lab, Northwestern University
Dean Karlan is the Frederic Esser Nemmers Distinguished Professor of Economics and Finance at Northwestern University and the founder and former president of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization dedicated to discovering and promoting solutions to global poverty problems. Karlan was the Chief Economist at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) from 2022 until resigning in 2025. His research focuses on microeconomic issues of poverty, spanning many geographies and topics, including sustainable income generation for those in abject poverty, credit and savings markets for low income households, agriculture for smallholder farmers, small and medium entrepreneurship, weight loss and smoking cessation, and charitable giving.
