Experts

Ugo is Professor of Economics and Pictet Chair at the Graduate Institute, Geneva and Vice President of CEPR. His research focuses on Sovereign Debt, Finance and Development, Emerging Market Countries, and Economic Growth. Before joining the Graduate Institute, he was Chief of the Debt and Finance Analysis Unit at UNCTAD and a Senior Economist at the Inter-American Development Bank. He also worked at the World Bank and taught at the American University of Beirut and the University of Torino.

Jonathan A. Parker is the Robert C. Merton (1970) Professor of Finance, Head of the MIT Sloan Finance Department, and co-director of the MIT Golub Center for Finance and Policy. He has held numerous service positions and consulting positions, including Area Head of Economics, Finance and Accounting at Sloan, Editor of the NBER Macroeconomics Annual, and Special Adviser on Financial Stability for the Office of Financial Stability in the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2009. He currently serves as an Economic Adviser for the Congressional Budget Office, a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, a Research Fellow at the JP Morgan Chase Institute, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. An expert in finance, macroeconomics, and household behavior, Professor Parker has published widely on topics such as macroeconomic risks and asset returns, fiscal stabilization policy, national saving, household financial decisions, the measurement of business cycles, and modeling human economic behaviour.

Urvish is a member of the Macroeconomics Team at NIESR, working on forecasting the UK economy and contributing to ongoing improvements in NIESR’s global macroeconomic model, NiGEM. He is also developing models for the devolved nations of the UK and has been focusing on the rising cost of living and subsequent squeeze on real incomes in the UK. His main research interests are in macroeconomic performance and policy, especially in India, and Central Banking, particularly macroprudential policy.

Raj is the strategic lead for policy engagement and impact at Understanding Society. He was previously a Director at the Learning & Skills Network, where he ran a large commercial research function and an independent think tank. His career includes formulating strategy and policy at one of the UK’s largest campaigns to stimulate enterprise culture amongst young adults, and heading up Research and Development at the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now DLUHC). He has operated across government, business, academia, and the charity sector at a senior level.

Dr Elise Paul joined the Institute of Epidemiology & Health at UCL in September 2020. Broadly speaking, her research focuses on psychosocial predictors of mental and physical health outcomes across the lifespan. She completed her PhD in 2017 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Her doctoral thesis examined predictors of self-harm ideation and behaviours in childhood and adolescence, with a particular focus on child abuse and neglect. Since then, she has worked as a consultant for the World Health Organization implementing their global suicide prevention strategy. Elise is currently involved in several projects at UCL, including writing a review on loneliness and risk for cardiovascular disease.