Dr. Jessica Lee Cohen is Assistant Professor of Global Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Faculty Affiliate at the Harvard Center for International Development. She has conducted a number of randomized-controlled field trials in Africa related to appropriate treatment for malaria, technology adoption, behavior change messaging and pharmaceutical supply chains, including: Whether subsidies for over-the-counter malaria tests in African pharmacies can be used to encourage adoption of the tests and reduce overtreatment with malaria medicine The impact of package design and messaging of antimalarials on treatment compliance Whether financial incentives to wholesalers can improve pharmaceutical supply chains to remote areas of Tanzania. The role of beliefs about malaria prevalence and of targeted messaging/behavior change campaigns on consumer demand for malaria testing and supplier pricing Dr. Cohen is co-editor (with William Easterly) of the book “What Works in Development?: Thinking Big and Thinking Small.” She also has conducted research on financing vehicles to reduce aid volatility and the feasibility of malaria elimination. Other on-going work includes a randomized trial exploring the role of financial vehicles (such as savings accounts and insurance mechanisms) to encourage safe delivery and post-natal care in urban Kenya. Dr. Cohen’s work has been published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, Malaria Journal and the Lancet. Her work has been referenced in media such as the Economist, the Boston Globe, New York Times and Nature. She has advised the government of Zanzibar on its malaria control program and the Canadian International Development Agency on its child survival programs.

Dr. Cohen received her bachelor’s degree in economics from Wesleyan University and was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at MIT, where she received her doctorate in economics.

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