Mary Ann Bates is a policy manager in J-PAL’s Global Office. She leads J-PAL’s work in creating publications that help communicate policy lessons from J-PAL’s evaluations to policymakers. She is also actively involved in working with governments, NGOs, foundations and international development organizations to disseminate the results from J-PAL’s work. Mary Ann is the lead staff for the Environment and Energy Program, where she is working with J-PAL’s affiliated professors to promote more randomized evaluations in that field and to disseminate the resulting policy lessons to answer questions at the intersection of environment, energy, and poverty reduction.

Mary Ann brings experience working in Thailand and in Jordan, where she was invited to teach and to pilot a Jordan-US exchange program. As a Fulbright Scholar, she conducted research in Switzerland, and she has conducted policy analysis for the California Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Mary Ann holds a Master of Public Policy from the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, where she received the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fellowship. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in International Studies and English at Denison University, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated as valedictorian of her class.