Alison Fahey

Alison Fahey is Global Director of Innovation and Strategy. She leads J-PAL’s worldwide strategy and guides design, launching, and advising a portfolio of new and existing partnerships with governments, NGOs, philanthropies, and the private sector. Alison developed and leads the Evidence Effect, an effort to focus public and philanthropic resources on promising and scalable ideas, and she also advises new policy projects and other innovations across J-PAL's regional offices and vertical teams. 

Alison was the founding Executive Director of J-PAL Middle East and North Africa, where she built and led J-PAL's newest regional office based at The American University in Cairo, guiding strategy and growth of research, policy, capacity building, and operations teams, and forging partnerships for evidence generation and use with innovative policymakers across the MENA region. She also previously served as Global Director of Policy and Communications, leading the group that synthesizes and shares insights from randomized evaluations to inform policy design and scale decisions with partners worldwide. 

Prior to joining J-PAL, Alison worked in a variety of positions related to service delivery, economic growth, and decentralization with USAID in Afghanistan and Jordan, and with the World Bank in Indonesia. Alison was a Fulbright Scholar in Jordan and she holds an M.P.A. in International Development from Princeton University.

Alison enjoys scuba diving and has been diving in every continent except Antarctica.