He holds a Ph.D. from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a B.A. in Economics from Grinnell College. His research focuses on a variety of issues in Latin American countries including early childhood development, cash transfers, schooling, migration fair-trade coffee, and quinoa. He has received research grants from the Inter-American Development Bank and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development to study the effects of conditional cash transfers on early childhood development. He has also has worked for a variety of international organizations including the World Bank, United Nations and Evidence Action.