Kelly Zhang
Research Affiliate
email kwzhang@mit.edu
Kelly is a Research Scientist at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics and a Research Affiliate at MIT GOV/LAB. She is working with Busara and MIT GOV/LAB to build out an online experiments research agenda for the Global South. Her research focuses on the impact of information on voter attitudes and behavior. This includes working with partners to design and implement projects that examined how information and technology can shape political discourse and civic engagement. At MIT GOV/LAB, she worked with Busara to co-launch the Behavioral Science in the Field Course in Nairobi, Kenya. Previously, Kelly was a computational social scientist for ACRONYM and data scientist at Social Capital and Crowdpac. During her graduate studies, she worked with various civil society and international organizations including Twaweza, the National Taxpayers Association, USAID, and the World Bank on initiatives aimed at improving governance. She earned her BA/BS in Political Science/Biology from University of California, San Diego and her PhD/MA in Political Science/Economics from Stanford University.
Related Work
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Update September 2020
[WZB Magazine] Taking Behavioral Science to the Field in Kenya
Training the next generation of scholars in behavioral science from a Global South perspective.
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Results February 2020
A Novel Approach to Civic Pedagogy: Training Grassroots Organizers on WhatsApp
Research results from a collaborative project with Grassroot, a civic technology organization based in South Africa.
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Results February 2020
Behavioral Science in the Field Course Syllabus
A novel graduate course in Kenya providing an interdisciplinary approach to Behavioral Science, with three tracks in economics, political science, and social psychology, and training in the full cycle of lab-in-the-field research.
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Update July 2019
Getting to the Grassroot, Leadership Development through Storytelling on WhatsApp
A technology platform in South Africa enables community organizers to mobilize more people; next is supporting them to mobilize better.
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Update July 2019
MIT GOV/LAB and Busara to Launch Behavioral Science in the Field Course in Kenya
In January 2020, we will pilot a new course with Busara that trains MIT and East African graduate students on lab in the field experiments.
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Update April 2019
Designing Social Impact Metrics for Civic Technology
Bringing together partners from the US (POPVOX) and South Africa (Grassroot), we tested a new format to co-develop metrics and civic technology in an iterative design process.
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Update October 2018
New Research Scientist Joins the Team
Kelly Zhang, Stanford PhD in Political Science, joins MIT GOV/LAB as a research scientist focusing on civic technology.