O'Brien-Udry Lab

The lab explores questions related to foreign aid, climate change, and international political economy. Currently, team members are digitizing historical World Bank documents to create a database of all proposed projects from 1955 to 2022. Tasks include: systemic digitization of documents, cleaning and merging existing data, historical research on selected aid projects, and network analyses of associated bureaucrats. The project aims to use the full sample of projects to understand key selection issues in aid.

UIUC students interested in joining the lab should fill out this form.

Our 2025/6 lab manager is Ping Meunprasittiveg.

Current Lab members

Ani Apresyan Sia Bhutani Ishita Chaurasia Ben Conway Grace Farrar Kevin Jaime-Villagomez Ananya Kavatekar Ping Meunprasittiveg Eshal Mirza Nitya Nair Enrique Padilla Sankirtana Ravichandran Ishani Sahu Kayla Sanchez Dev Shah Shlok Shah Dexter Skobel Martha Sulzen Hannah Sundararajan Steven Tobia Connor Waddell Kris Wu

Alumni

Sophia Teresa Alvarez Aleeha Javed Chughtai Wencheng Huangfu Jonathan Kroeze Vedika Amit Shah