Ren Mu is Robert H. and Judy L. Allen Professor of Economics in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the Michigan State University in 2004. Prior to joining Texas A&M University in 2007, she worked as a consultant economist in the Development Research Group at the World Bank.

Her research is in applied development microeconomics. She has worked on such topics as rural-to-urban migration, consumption smoothing, population aging and elderly health, gender disparity, and public goods and poverty reduction. Ren joined IZA as a Research Fellow in April 2012.