Student Profile: Gabriel Angarita, MPP Class of 2023

Gabriel Angarita, MPP Class of 2023, grew up in Bogota, Colombia. As a child, Angarita remembers going with his parents to work and seeing people who had been displaced by violence living in dire situations on the city’s streets. He would travel to marginalized neighborhoods, where, unlike in the rich parts of the city, there were no roads, electricity, or other public services.

“Colombia is a country with high levels of poverty and inequality, marked by an armed conflict that has worsened the situation. That was a very great motivation to understand the situation that I observed in the streets day-to-day,” Angarita said.

To resolve these problems, Angarita needed to understand why so many in his country faced financial hardship. He graduated with a bachelor of economics from the Universidad Externado de Colombia in 2012 and then went to work at Fedesarrollo, a think-tank based in Bogota. Angarita was a research analyst and worked for Daniel Gómez, an economist who earned a PhD from the University of Chicago and advocates for the importance of evidence-based policy making.

“Dr. Gómez had a huge impact on how I understood public service. I was able to learn from his perspective the importance of moral and ethical standards in public service, always making decisions based on evidence and strong technical analysis,” Angarita said.

Angarita went on to join the National Federation of Coffee Growers in 2013. At the time, coffee prices had dropped, which had led to riots. He helped design a coffee subsidy to assist farmers during the market downturn.

His experience working on the coffee subsidy became the foundation for the thesis he wrote while working towards his master’s in economics from Universidad de los Andes. His thesis advisor, Leopoldo Fergusson, also was a visiting scholar in 2017 at The Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts at the University of Chicago.

After earning his master's, Angarita went on to work in Colombia's congress and work at Itaú Asset Management. Now, he serves as an advisor to the Microeconomic Policy Director at the Ministry of Finance. In his current role, he has been working on tax reforms and passing measures to mitigate Colombia's poverty.

Angarita decided he needed to go back to school to improve his data and technical skills. "I wanted to improve my coding and learn about new technologies being used by economists, and I was impressed by the way Harris combines public policy, computer science, and social science. The interaction among these three themes is complementary and, when integrated with my previous education, will improve my skills,” he said.

After Harris, Angarita said he plans to return to Colombia to work in the public sector and possibly get into politics. He wants to focus on increasing the country’s budget transparency so that taxpayers know where their money is being spent. Angarita said whatever he does, he hopes to improve the lives of those living in Colombia.

“That is my motivation for my daily and work life: to build knowledge to improve the well-being of society and participate with contributions for collective decision-making,” he said.