M. Merritt Smith
PhD Student · UC Berkeley School of Information
I am a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley School of Information, where I'm lucky to be advised by Josh Blumenstock. My research is on poverty reduction: I use machine learning and econometrics to study how anti-poverty programs can find and reach the people who need them most, with a particular focus on machine learning for targeting.
Before Berkeley, I worked on research on crime, policing, development, deep learning, and causal inference. I hold an MS in Computational Analysis and Public Policy from the University of Chicago, and a BA in Data Science and Public Policy from Tufts University.