Elisabeth Paulson

Email: epaulson (at) hbs (dot) edu



Hi! I am an Assistant Professor in the Technology and Operations Management Unit of Harvard Business School. I am also a Faculty Affiliate at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University.

My research uses data-driven methods to improve how public and social-sector organizations design and allocate resources. I study questions such as what programs, services, or incentives should be made available, how they can be tailored to different needs, and how limited resources can be allocated more effectively and equitably. One area of focus is improving access to, and consumption of, fresh food, by optimizing incentive and subsidy programs. Much of this work has been motivated through collaborations with the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance. Another stream of research uses machine learning and optimization to improve refugee resettlement. This work is in collaboration with the GeoMatch team at the Stanford Immigration Policy Lab, where I completed a postdoc. Beyond these applications, I am broadly interested in the design and allocation of resources in social good settings. My research intersects various fields including AI, machine learning, optimization, economics, and statistics.

I received my PhD in Operations Research from MIT in 2021, where I was co-advised by Retsef Levi and Georgia Perakis. Before coming to MIT, I received a B.S. in Math, B.S. in Statistics, and M.A. in Math from the Pennsylvania State University.

You can find my CV here.

Research

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Published

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