Jessica Williams

Jessica Williams is a policy manager at J-PAL where she works with researchers and policymakers to transform evidence from randomized evaluations into better education policy and scale decisions. Jess manages the Learning for All Initiative, which designs, evaluates, and scales high-impact solutions to improve student learning in low-and-middle income countries in collaboration with governments, NGOs, donors, and companies worldwide. She also supports the Post Primary Education Initiative and the interdisciplinary Foundations of Learning program.

Prior to joining J-PAL in 2023, Jess worked as a strategy analyst at an ed-tech startup, Merlyn Mind, exploring artificial intelligence assistants for teachers in K-12 classrooms. Previously, she taught algebra for two years outside of Boston where she was involved in multilingual curriculum design and afterschool programming for girls in STEM and girls in sports. Jess also previously interned at impact-investing firm Social Finance and Directorio Legislativo, an Argentinian NGO focused on government transparency.

Jessica holds a master’s degree in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard College, where she graduated cum laude in field.

She is currently working toward completing her MIT Pirate Certificate.