Ahmed Elsayed the executive director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab Middle East and North Africa (J-PAL MENA) and an associate professor at the American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Business.
As executive director of J-PAL MENA, he plays a crucial role in the organisation's operations by providing strategic and technical oversight to research, policy outreach and capacity-building activities. His role involves guiding the strategic direction and growth of the organisation and cultivating partnerships with innovative policymakers across the MENA region to foster evidence generation and usage.
Ahmed is currently a research fellow at the Institute of Labour Economics (IZA) in Bonn, Germany, the Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA) in the Netherlands and the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in Egypt. His main research interests are in development economics, applied micro-econometrics, migration and labor economics. He is particularly interested in the intersection between research and policy in the area of development.
He received his master's in business science research and a PhD in economics from the Maastricht University School of Business and Economics in the Netherlands.