Emiliana Vegas

ELLA is led by HGSE Professor of Practice Emiliana Vegas. Her research and practice focus on improving educational opportunities in developing countries, with a special focus on Latin America and the Caribbean. She earned a Doctor of Education degree from HGSE, a Master of Public Policy from Duke University, and a bachelor's degree (Licenciatura) in communications from the Andres Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Venezuela.

Before returning to HGSE, Professor Vegas was co-director of the Center for Universal Education at Brookings. Between 2012 and 2019, she was Chief of the Education Division at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), where she oversaw the Bank’s lending operations and technical assistance projects throughout Latin America and Caribbean countries. Before joining the IADB, she spent over ten years at The World Bank, where she led research and operations focused on education systems in various low- and middle-income countries. She has written extensively on issues affecting education systems in Latin America and the Caribbean and other developing regions. Her papers and books cover several education system issues, including policies to leverage technology to accelerate learning and skills development, raising teacher effectiveness, school finance policies, and early childhood development policies.  Her recent book, Let’s Change the World: How to Work within International Development Organizations to Make a Difference, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in September 2024.

Professor Vegas will bring expertise from HGSE and the broader Harvard community to collaborate in the Lab’s initiatives. She is a faculty affiliate of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Harvard Center for International Development, where she is co-chair of the Global Education and Research: Unleashing Potential (GEAR:UP) program.