Jessica Hoel joins Colorado College after spending two years as an Associate Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC. Her current work has taken her to Ethiopia, Senegal, and Tanzania, and she lived in rural western Kenya for more than a year. Jessica's research uses experimental laboratory games to study household decision-making and the behavioral effects of poverty. Jessica received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan and a B.A. in Math and Economics from Reed College. Outside of work, Jessica enjoys yoga, hiking, and cooking.

Jessica works at the intersection of international development and behavioral economics. One previous project examined cooperation between spouses in Kenya, while another studied the effect of cognitive taxation on patience in Ethiopian university students. She is currently working with maize farmers in Uganda to study how ambiguity aversion affects the decision to use herbicide that may have been counterfeited, and households in Senegal to look at how cooperation between spouses affects productivity in dairy farming.