Stuart Russell

I am an Economist (YP) in the World Bank's Governance Global Practice currently working on the West and Central Africa region. I am also a research affiliate with MIT GOVLAB as well as a member of the World Bank's Bureaucracy Lab. I have a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a B.A. in political science and economics from Swarthmore College. I originally joined the World Bank through the Young Professionals Program.

I conduct both academic-focused and policy-focused research in collaboration with colleagues internal to and external to the World Bank. I am broadly interested in how politics influences public administration, public financial management, and public procurement. I have worked on these issues in many low- and middle-income countries, but I have a particular interest in the West Africa region. 

Most of my research projects leverage large, administrative datasets scraped from government records, though I also have extensive training in randomized experiments, behavioral games, and survey design. My research has been funded by the MIT GOVLAB, the MIT Center for International Studies and the MIT Political Methodology Lab. Beyond MIT, my research has been generously supported by the West Africa Research Association, the Governance and Local Development Institute, and the Open Contracting Partnership.

Prior to graduate school and the World Bank, I worked for the public health non-profit Population Services International in Dakar, Senegal and the Center for International Development at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. During graduate school, I worked for IDinsight and the Development Impact Evaluation group at the World Bank.

I am fluent in French and have lived and worked in France, Senegal, and Morocco. I have also conducted extensive field work in many countries across sub-Saharan Africa.