Speaker's Brief Bio: 

Joshua Blumenstock is a Chancellor’s Associate Professor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information and the Goldman School of Public Policy. He is the Co-director of the Global Opportunity Lab and the Center for Effective Global Action. Blumenstock's research combines methods from computer science and empirical economics, with a focus on how novel data and technology can better address the needs of very poor and vulnerable populations. He has a Ph.D. in Information Science and a M.A. in Economics from U.C. Berkeley, and Bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Wesleyan University. He is a recipient of awards including the NSF CAREER award, the Intel Faculty Early Career Honor, and the U.C. Berkeley Chancellor's Award for Public Service. His work appears in general interest journals including Science, Nature, and PNAS, as well as prominent economics journals (e.g., American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies) and computer science conferences (e.g., ICML, KDD, AAAI, WWW, CHI).