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The Lab for Economic Development Research (LEDR) equips students with data/technical skills and substantive knowledge on international development through paid, mentored research opportunities with faculty. These high-impact experiences empower students, enhancing their post-graduation employment opportunities at prestigious institutions. Students and faculty are undertaking projects on corruption, diplomacy and foreign aid, environment and natural resources, and globalization and trade. These projects take place on dedicated teams with other students, entail policy-relevant research, and often collaborate with other institutions, such as the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank.
LEDR Leadership
Michael Denly
Executive Director and Corruption Team Leader, LEDR
Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Michael (Mike) Denly is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, where he teaches courses on quantitative methods. His substantive research focuses on the political economy of development, with an emphasis on corruption, foreign aid, and natural resources. Outside of academia, Mike has worked and/or consulted for the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, USAID, US State Department, and the EU Commission. Denly completed his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022 and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse for the 2022-2023 academic year.
Raymond Robertson
Co-Director and Globalization Team Co-Leader, LEDR
Director, Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy
Helen and Roy Ryu Professor of Economics and Government
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Biography | robertson@tamu.edu
Raymond Robertson is a professor and holder of the Helen and Roy Ryu Chair in Economics and Government in the Departments of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service and the director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy. Robertson’s research focuses on labor market integration, global value chains, and international economics. Robertson is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany, and a senior research fellow at the Mission Foods Texas-Mexico Center. He previously chaired the US Department of Labor’s National Advisory Committee for Labor Provisions of the US Free Trade Agreements and served on both the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Center for Global Development’s advisory board. Robertson earned a PhD in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Benjamin Helms
Globalization Team Co-Leader, LEDR
Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Benjamin Helms is an assistant professor in the Department of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service. Helms’ research interests are in international political economy, with a particular focus on the political economy of globalization in emerging economies and the politics of international migration. He is particularly interested in how global economic integration reshapes domestic politics in developing countries, as well as the political causes and consequences of immigration. Helms received his PhD in Politics from the University of Virginia in 2022.
Matt Malis
Diplomacy & Foreign Aid Team Co-leader, LEDR
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Matt Malis is an assistant professor in the Political Science Department at the Bush School of Government and Public Service. His research focuses on questions of delegation and accountability in foreign policy. Malis received his PhD in Politics from New York University in 2022 and previously held a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Niehaus Center at Princeton University.
Andrew Morriss
Globalization Team Co-Leader, LEDR
Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government & Public Service
Andrew Morriss is a professor of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government & Public Service. His primary areas of research are international financial centers, regulation of business and the environment, and empirical legal studies. Morriss has taught in the Cayman Islands, China, Guatemala, Guernsey, Greece, Hong Kong, Jersey, and Venezuela and lectured in Cambodia, Italy, Nepal, and the United Kingdom. He is affiliated with the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University and the Property and Environment Research Center, Bozeman, Montana. He previously served as Dean of the Texas A&M School of Law and held the D. Paul & Charlene A. Jones Chair in Law at the University of Alabama, the H. Ross & Helen Workman Professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Galen J. Roush Professor of Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve University. Morriss received his AB from Princeton University, his JD and Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, his PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Master of Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University.
Ren Mu
Globalization Team Co-Leader, LEDR
Robert H. and Judy L. Allen Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government and Public Service
Ren Mu is a professor and holder of the Robert H. and Judy L. Allen Professorship at the Bush School of Government and Public Service. Her research is in the empirical microeconomics area of development economics. She primarily focuses on decision making of households and individuals in the developing world. Through evidence-based analysis, her research goal is to enhance the understanding of micro-foundations for designing and implementing sound development strategies and public policies. Mu is also a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. She received her PhD in economics from Michigan State University.
William Norris
Diplomacy & Foreign Aid Team Co-leader, LEDR
Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government & Public Service
William Norris is an associate professor of Chinese foreign and security policy at the Bush School of Government and Public Service and program director of the Economic Statecraft Program. Norris has been an associate with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington D.C., a postdoctoral research associate at the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, and a fellow in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, a joint program created by the two universities to foster the study of China’s foreign relations. He completed his doctoral work in the Security Studies Program in the Department of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His broad research interests include East Asian security, business-government relations, Chinese foreign and security policy, and international relations theory—particularly the strategic relationship between economics and national security.
Danila Serra
Associate Professor, Department of International Affairs
Associate Professor, Department of Economics
Bush School of Government & Public Service
Danila Serra is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University with a joint appointment in the Department of Economics and in the Bush School’s Department of International Affairs. Serra’s research focuses on development economics with an emphasis on Africa. In her work, she has applied lab and field experimental methods to the study of corruption, governance, and the provision of public services, with special focus on non-monetary incentives and bottom-up accountability systems. Some of her more recent work focuses on issues related to gender differences in education and labor market participation, gender norms, and women’s empowerment. Serra received her PhD in economics from the University of Oxford, her MS in economics from the London School of Economics, and her BS from Bocconi University in Milan.
Tatiana Zarate-Barrera
Environment & Natural Resources Team Co-leader, LEDR
Assistant Professor, Department of International Affairs
Bush School of Government & Public Service
Biography | tatianazarate@tamu.edu
Tatiana Zarate-Barrera is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Dr. Zarate-Barrera’s research combines economics and computational methods with large-scale data to study environmental issues in low to middle-income countries. She investigates how pollution affects various aspects of human well-being and evaluates the economic benefits of conserving and restoring natural ecosystems. Before joining academia, Zarate-Barrera worked for several years as a consultant for international organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. Zarate-Barrera earned her PhD from the University of British Columbia, with a disciplinary focus on environmental economics.
LEDR Students
- Hongbi Choi (Political Science PhD Student, Environment and Natural Resources Team)
- Zoe Erickson (International Affairs MA Student, Corruption Team)
- Colleen Goggin (International Affairs MA Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Benjamin Gottfried (International Affairs MA Student, Globalization Team)
- Indira Gunness (International Affairs MA Student, Corruption Team)
- Trinity Johnson (International Affairs MA Student, Globalization Team)
- Elizabeth Kemsley (International Affairs BA Student, Globalization Team)
- Madison King (International Affairs MA Student, Environment and Natural Resources Team)
- Smriti Kolar (Political Science and Economics BS Student, Globalization Team)
- Liceth Meza (Political Science BA Student, Globalization Team)
- Ana’Karen Moreno Flores (Political Science BA Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Abigail Owen (International Studies BS Student, Globalization Team)
- Sam Park (International Affairs MA Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Haylee Plumley (Political Science BA Student, Globalization Team)
- Aziz Rahmaty (International Affairs MA Student, Corruption Team)
- Katelyn Sammon (Political Science BA Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Rob Schantz (International Affairs MA Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Kyle Smith (Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
- Nicholas Vassilas (Political Science BS Student, Diplomacy and Foreign Aid Team)
LEDR Contact
For more information about LEDR, please email ledr@tamu.edu.