Eduardo Montero and Shaoda Wang join Harris' community of scholars.

Two new tenure-track faculty have joined the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy this year. Assistant Professors Eduardo Montero and Shaoda Wang bring innovative research portfolios, international vantage points, and fresh perspectives to the Harris School community of scholars. Their agendas extend the school’s expertise in applied, development, and environmental economics, as well as political economy.

“I am delighted to welcome Shaoda and Eduardo, both accomplished researchers and engaging educators, to Harris,” said Katherine Baicker, dean and Emmett Dedmon Professor. “Their individual scholarly contributions exemplify how evidence-driven analysis, a defining feature of Harris faculty-led research, can create greater understanding of vexing economic and policy questions that face societies in different parts of the world.”  

The additions of Montero and Wang boost the number of Harris faculty to 54, including eight with joint appointments across the university. The school’s faculty ranks have grown dramatically. Harris has welcomed 10 tenure-track scholars over the past three academic years alone, and 34 since 2015-2016, including Nobel Prize laureates Michael Kremer and Roger Myerson. With this recent expansion, Harris today boasts strong, deep rosters of world-class researchers in vital fields such as health policy, social policy, energy and environmental economics, political economy, and international and development economics.

For more about the two newest faculty members:

Eduardo Montero

Assistant Professor Eduardo Montero

Originally from Costa Rica, Eduardo Montero’s research centers on understanding how institutions and culture affect development and development policy in Central America and Central Africa. His broader interests relate to development economics, political economy, economic history, and the intersections between these interrelated topics.

Montero is a Faculty Research Fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and an affiliate with the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD). He graduated from Stanford University with a BA in economics in 2010 and an MS in statistics in 2011. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 2018, and served as an assistant professor at the University of Michigan from 2018 to 2021.

Shaoda Wang

Assistant Professor Shaoda Wang

Shaoda Wang is an applied economist with research interests in development economics, environmental economics, and political economy. His main research agenda aims at understanding the political economy of public policy (design, implementation, effectiveness), with a regional focus on China.

He holds a BA from Peking University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining Harris, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Economics and Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) at the University of Chicago.