I am Lead (with von Hinke) of the European Social Science Genetics Network (ESSGN), an Associate Professor (research) of Economics at the University of  Southern California (USC) Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR), Director of the CESR Center for the Study of Human Capital (CSHC), Associate Professor of Economics at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, School of Business and Economics, and a Research Fellow at the Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam.

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I am an award-winning astrophysicist who turned to business/management, then policy analysis,  economics, and geno-economics/social-science genetics. I was at the forefront of several breakthrough discoveries in astrophysics, two of which were considered the 5th and 10th most significant scientific discoveries (in all science fields) of 1997 and 1999, respectively, by Science magazine. After completion of my doctoral thesis in astrophysics, I worked as a Fairchild Postdoctoral Prize Fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, U.S.A. Following my career in astrophysics, I obtained an MBA from INSEAD at the Singapore and French campuses, and subsequently joined L.E.K Consulting, a top ten global strategy consulting firm, as a Senior Consultant in the Los Angeles office. I joined the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica in 2006.

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I am currently at the University of Southern California (USC)’s Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR), which I joined in 2013, and at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, which I joined in 2018. In these positions, my focus has been on understanding the substantial disparities in health by socioeconomic status, utilizing economic principles and social-science genetic methods. I have authored over 70 scientific publications in top scientific, policy, and economics journals.

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