Kelly Jones is Assistant Professor of Economics at American University and a faculty member of the Program on Gender Analysis in Economics. Her research encompasses gender economics, health economics, and development economics, and features both field experiments and natural experiments. Recent work focuses on approaches to increasing women’s empowerment in Africa, and the impacts of reproductive health and family support policies in the U.S. Her work has been featured in major media outlets, including the New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

She has also served as Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, where she was Director of the Center on the Economics of Reproductive Health, and previously as Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. She completed her doctorate in Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley in 2011. She also holds a Masters in International Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and served as a secondary school teacher in Kenya with the U.S. Peace Corps.

Kelly Jones joined IZA as a Research Fellow in March 2021.