Professor Sonia Bhalotra awarded title of IEA Fellow

We are delighted to announce that Sonia Bhalotra, Professor of Economics, is one of four winners of the International Economics Association (IEA) Fellowship, the other three being Pinelopi Goldberg (Yale), Maitreesh Ghatak (LSE) and Vijayendra Rao (World Bank Research Department).

The IEA website explains that “A nominating committee, chaired by Sir Timothy Besley, past President of IEA, follows an arduous process of reviewing and selecting nominations and granting the awards”.

The IEA Fellow title is for life and is given in recognition of excellence in research and in research-driven contributions to popular writing, economics curriculum building and policy work. It is conferred to economists worldwide who have made an important contribution through the creation or dissemination of new ideas and high-quality policy work.

Professor Sonia Bhalotra, who joined the Department of Economics on 1 April 2021, has been recognised for excellence in research in the areas of child development, global health, gender and political economy of public service provision. Sonia’s research uses micro-data from across developing countries, early twentieth century data from America and the Scandinavian countries, and contemporary data for the UK and Europe.

Professor Bhalotra has served on scientific steering committees including at the Lancet, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and UNESCO. She is currently Principal Investigator on a European Research Council Advanced Grant (2021-2026), Co-investigator on the ESRC Research Centre for Microsocial Change (ISER, Essex, 2019-2024), Co-investigator on the ESRC Human Rights Big Data and Technology Project (Law, Essex, 2015-2021) and Co-investigator on a CEDIL-funded project on maternal Depression, parental Investment and child development co-funded by the National Institute of Health in the USA (2020-2025).

Sonia is Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Sciences, the Centre for Economic Policy Research UK, the Institute of Labour Economics Bonn, IEPS Brazil and SFI Denmark.

Asked about what this award means to her, Professor Sonia Bhalotra said:

“I wasn’t aware of the IEA Fellowship or aware that I was being considered, so the announcement was a complete surprise. I am grateful for the recognition and hope that I will continue to merit the title over the years to come.”

Head of Department, Professor Jeremy Smith, said:

“The IEA’s Fellow is a prestigious award in recognition of Sonia’s excellent research and her contribution to policy work. On behalf of the whole Department, I congratulate Sonia on this great achievement, and wish her further successes in the future.”

Related Links

• Read more about the International Economics Association (IEA) and IEA’s Fellowships on the IEA website
• Visit Prof Sonia Bhalotra's staff profile pageLink opens in a new window which includes a list of her publications.