Team

Current Organizing Team

Adriana Cardozo Silva

Institution: German Institute for Economic Reseach (DIW)

Position: Postdoctoral Researcher

Email: acardozosilva@diw.de

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise:  Migration, Refugee Migration, Labor and development economics


Dr. Adriana R. Cardozo Silva works as a researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) at the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) as part of the project "Refugee Families in Germany" (GeFam2). Currently, her research focuses on the integration of refugees into the German labor market. Previously, Ms. Cardozo conducted research at the University of Göttingen on the economic and social impacts of migration in developing countries, as well as on international trade and international organizations. She has worked as an economic analyst at the World Bank and as a research associate for the Inter-American Development Bank.

Katharina Fietz

Institution: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA, Hamburg)

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate

Email: Katharina.fietz@giga-hamburg.de

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise:  Labor and development economics, social protection systems


Katharina is a Doctoral Student at the GIGA German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and the University of Göttingen. In her PhD, she focuses on social protection systems in the context of informal labour markets. She holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Nova School of Business and Economics. Katharina is interested in development and labour economics.


Sarah Frohnweiler

Institution: RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI, Berlin office) 

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate 

Email: sarah.frohnweiler@rwi-essen.de

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise:  Development economics, impact evaluation, migration economics, labor economics


Sarah studied Development Economics at the University of Bayreuth and the Georg-August-University of Göttingen. Since August 2020 she is a researcher at RWI Berlin. As a development economist Sarah’s research focuses on the field of migration and labor markets as well as health. She is currently involved in a set of rigorous impact evaluations in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire mandated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) as part of its Special Initiative on Training and Job Creation. Her recent work further includes an impact evaluation of a newly constructed general hospital in Managua, Nicaragua.


Jonathan Garcia

Institution: Humboldt University of Berlin, Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ)

Position:  Researcher and PhD Candidate

Email: garcia@igzev.de

Webpage: Institute 

Areas of expertise: Conflict, food security, impact evaluation, humanitarian aid allocation


Jonathan Garcia is a doctoral researcher at the Zero Hunger Lab, a working group between IGZ and the Humboldt University of Berlin. He is also a research affiliate at ISDC. In his Ph.D., he studies the link between climate-driven conflict and food insecurity and evaluates the impact and trade-offs of targeting and prioritization approaches of humanitarian aid. He holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics from the Georg-August University of Göttingen, a Master’s degree in Labour Economics from the University of Turin, and a B.A. in Applied Economics from the Central American University in Nicaragua. He worked for over seven years at the UN-World Food Programme in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Sudan, and the regional bureaus for Latin America (Panama) and Southern Africa (Johannesburg).

Alina Imping

Institution: Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU)

Position:  Researcher and PhD Candidate

Email: alina.imping@fau.de

Webpage: Institute 

Areas of expertise: Health and development economics, insurance, risk and uncertainty, behavioural economics


Alina holds a Master’s Degree in Economics from Humboldt University in Berlin. Since 2020, she is a Doctoral Student at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg. In her PhD, she focuses on health care seeking behaviour, especially under risk and uncertainty, and health insurance in low-income contexts. She is currently involved in a study evolving around a large social health protection initiative in Pakistan.

Giulia Malevolti

Institution: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Position:  Postdoctoral Researcher

Email: giuliama@pik-potsdam.de

Webpage: Institute 

Areas of expertise:  Development economics, poverty analysis, agricultural economics


Giulia holds a PhD in Development Economics and Local Systems (DELoS) from the Universities of Trento and Florence with a thesis on poverty traps and climatic shocks, refugees and income diversification. Since June 2023 she is a postdoctoral researcher at PIK. She works both with the Adaptation in Agricultural Systems and with the Climate Change and Health working groups. Her research at PIK focuses on the socio-economic impacts of climate change and adaptation solutions in low- and middle-income countries. Her other research interests include food security, rural development, migration and gender issues. 


Lena Merkel

Institution: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA, Hamburg), Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNITM, Hamburg) 

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate 

Email: lena.merkel@giga-hamburg.de

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise:  Health and development economics, behavioral economics, impact evaluation 


Lena studied Development Economics and Economic History at the Georg-August-University of Göttingen. Since January 2022 she is a doctoral student within the Leibniz Research Alliance INFECTIONS. As research fellow at the GIGA and BNITM in Hamburg, Lena pursues a PhD in Economics at the intersection with epidemiology. In her PhD, she focuses in the evaluation of health interventions in countries of the Global South. Currently, she is involved in the economic evaluation of a large clinical trial in Ghana and studying consumer learning about medicine quality in Burkina Faso. 


Lukas Mogge

Institution: RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI, Berlin office), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)

Position:  Postdoctoral Researcher 

Email: lukas.mogge@rwi-essen.de

Webpage: Institute 

Areas of expertise:  Climate adaptation, weather shocks, index insurance, humanitarian aid allocation


Lukas is a researcher at RWI’s Economic Policy Lab "Climate Change, Development and Migration". Lukas holds a MSc in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a MSc in Economics from the Free University of Berlin. In 2023, he completed his doctoral studies in Economics at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the Ruhr-University Bochum. Since 2020, Lukas is an active member of DENeB. His research interests are the socio-economic consequences of climate change, climate adaptation strategies, and development aid. 


Florian Neubauer

Institution: RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research (RWI, Berlin office) 

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate 

Email: florian.neubauer@uconn.edu

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise:  Development economics, applied microeconomics, research transparency and meta-science  


Florian is a researcher at RWI - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research where he works as a researcher in the department "Climate Change and Development" focusing on research transparency and meta-science. He conducts research on replicability and robustness in economics and the post-publication discussion. In addition to his work at RWI, Florian is a Ph.D. student at the University of Connecticut, where he focuses on the evaluation of agricultural development projects. Florian holds a Master's degree in Development Economics from Georg-August University Göttingen and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Leuphana University Lüneburg. He gained professional experience in international development projects in Liberia, Tanzania, and Kenya, at the German Development Corporation in Eschborn, and at the United Nations in New York.

Piero Ronzani

Institution: International Security and Development Center (ISDC, Berlin)

Position: Postdoctoral Researcher

Email: ronzani@isdc.org

Webpage: Institute, Personal website

Areas of expertise: Behavioral development economics, conflicts, impact evaluation 


His main topic of research is the role of poverty in decision-making processes. Piero’s research agenda includes studying misinformation, decisions under risk and testing public policies in experimental settings. Joining ISDC, he expanded his research areas by working on the linkage beween conflicts and development in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Piero is passionate about behavioural development economics, lab-in-the-field experiments, and impact evaluation techniques.

Piero has previously worked at the Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory at Trento University and CRESA Laboratory at San Raffaele University. In 2018 and 2019 he was a visiting scholar at CSAE in Oxford University. He holds a PhD in Economics obtained at Trento University.



Regina Schnars

Institution: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA, Hamburg)

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate

Email: regina.schnars@giga-hamburg.de

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise: Development economics, investment and labor economics


Regina is a doctoral researcher at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) in Hamburg and the University of Göttingen. She works on foreign direct investment, domestic investment and productive employment in sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a Master's Degree in Development Economics from the University of Göttingen.


Lame Ungwang

Institution: International Security and Development Center (ISDC, Berlin)

Position: Researcher and PhD Candidate

Email: ungwang@isdc.org

Webpage: Institute

Areas of expertise: Behavioral development economics, impact evaluation, microfinance, health and gender, peacebuilding


Lame is a researcher at ISDC Berlin and a doctoral candidate of the IMPRS Uncertainty research school at the university of Jena. Her ongoing work is on testing the efficacy of different approaches to improve the delivery of microfinance; and examining how to increase the use of welfare-improving technologies in the health domain. More recently, Lame conducts impact evaluations of peacebuilding programs funded by the UN Peacebuilding Fund in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America, which include peace-radio programming, land reform and various agricultural interventions. Her research is mostly experimental, including RCTs, lab-in-the-field and lab experiments,  as well as quasi-experimental and impact evaluation techniques. 



Former active DENeB members

Raavi Aggarwal

Veronika Bertram

Vanessa Boese

Cara Ebert

Jonah Foong

Jana Hamdan

Ana Garcia-Hernandez

Antonia Grohmann

Katharina Lehmann-Uschner 

Friederike Lenel

Florian Anselm Münch

Amma Panin 

Chantal Pezold

Annekatrin Schoofs

Fabian Scheifele

Shruti Shukla

Helke Seitz

Marrit Teirlinck 

Gerardo Valderrama Segura