Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL) Certificate

The Policy Design and Evaluation Lab (PDEL) combines advanced social science methodology with the power of information technology to design policies and programs that alleviate poverty, promote health, welfare and security and enhance accountability.

The PDEL Certificate program brings together a set of courses that bring students to the cutting edge of the techniques needed to conduct applied policy research. These courses include:

• Critical domains such as the econometric analysis of data
• The sampling and collection of original field surveys
• The design of randomized experiments
• The incorporation of geo-spatial information into policy analysis

The combination of these skills represent the nexus of randomized experiments, GIS and big data brought together for state-of-the-art policy analysis. Completion of the PDEL certificate means that students will be ready to engage in cutting edge applied field research upon graduation.

The program certificate is open only to current students enrolled in a master's degree or Ph.D. program at GPS. The certificate will not show as part of a formal transcript, rather it is a document you can provide to potential employers or program advisers. You can list it on your resume, CV and applications, documenting that you have developed state of the art skills in this area.

Program Overview

The course sequence provides close contact with faculty who are active in conducting applied fieldwork, which help students to integrate more closely into the kind of large, high-quality studies that are typically difficult to conduct with limited student funding resources.

Students will prepare empirical projects based on their research interests will help to construct building blocks for successful dissertations. Many students are able to join faculty projects as research assistants and benefit from involvement in research in topics across PDEL's key research sectors.

Ph.D. students who complete the certificate will be given preferential consideration when projects are screened for the PDEL Graduate Research Grants.

Questions? Contact Professor Craig McIntosh, the director of the PDEL certificate program.