Honorary Doctor of Science
You have said, “I was not destined to be an economist.”
How fortunate that destinies are not fixed.
Although you concentrated on math and history during the early years of your education, you were drawn into economics by an encounter with the academic Daniel Cohen. Later, at MIT, a graduate course in development economics with Professors Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer inspired you to join them in developing a new, experimental approach to development economics and the study of global poverty.
Nor did you accept the destiny of others. Raised in a well-off family, you had seen a gifted classmate suffer due to class discrimination. You always believed, as you later said, that “people live in very different circumstances … but at heart we have the same type of strengths as human beings and of weaknesses.”
So you co-created a center at MIT where you and a worldwide network of researchers could study global poverty and development and then distribute your findings to policymakers. Knowledge from the field experiments conducted by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (or J-PAL) has impacted the lives of an estimated 400 million people worldwide, helping many realize their strengths and change their fate. Your efforts earned you and Professors Banerjee and Kremer the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
You may not have been destined to be an economist. But in shaping your own future, you have opened new opportunities for millions of others as well.
I hereby declare you recipient of the honorary degree Doctor of Science, entitled to all the rights, honors and privileges appertaining thereto.
June 8, 2025