Sendhil Mullainathan, Professor of Economics at Harvard, is a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" and conducts research on development economics, behavioral economics, and corporate finance. His research helps bring an understanding of the psychology of scarcity, with the end goal of improving poverty alleviation programs and financial product design in the U.S. and in developing countries. Amongst others, he is the Managing Director and Founder of Ideas42, a Harvard-based social science research and development laboratory.

Rema Hanna is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School. She is a research fellow in the Sustainability Science Program at the Center for International Development and a senior researcher at Ideas42, a Harvard-based social science research and development laboratory. Her fields of interest include development and environmental economics. Her development work mostly focuses on India and Indonesia. Her current research focuses on understanding how discrimination influences public service provision and education. She received a BS in Public Policy from Cornell and a PhD in economics from MIT