Congratulations to Yogita Shamdasani, who has received an NUS Presidential Young Professorship award. These awards are open to junior faculty at NUS and provide additional, highly flexible, funding to support the research of award winners. It was designed to help the University attract and retain junior faculty whose research shows exceptional promise.

At present, there are seven recipients of this award at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.  Dr Shamdasani joins Gregory Cox and Tan Hui Ren, who are also current holders of the award in the Economics Department

Dr Shamdasani joined NUS in 2020 as Assistant Professor.  She completed her doctorate in 2017 at Columbia University and was an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh for three years before taking up her position at NUS.  Her research focuses on development economics and labor economics. She employs field, lab-in-the-field and natural experiments to study the causes and consequences of labor market frictions in developing countries.  She also investigates how transport infrastructure, pay inequality, and climate change impact labor productivity.

With her award, Dr Shamdasani will receive additional funding amounting to S$600,000 for her research. She plans to use part of this money to conduct a large-scale field experiment investigating workers’ needs for workplace flexibility in informal labor markets.

JQ, September 14, 2021