Staff & Contact

The U.S. Household Finance Initiative is looking for financial institutions and other partners to participate in cutting-edge research on product design, pricing, marketing and customer engagement.  Please contact us directly for more information on how to become a research partner.

Rebecca Rouse, Project Coordinator, rrouse@poverty-action.org

Rebecca Rouse holds a Master of Public Administration from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, and a B.A. in Political Science from Bryn Mawr College. Prior to joining IPA she worked on migrant remittances, market research and financial product design for Banco de Ahorro y Crédito Unión in the Dominican Republic, ACCION International, the International Organization for Migration, FINCA Peru and the Inter-American Dialogue. At IPA, Rebecca coordinates research on consumer finance, behavioral economics and savings with investigators Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman.  She is fluent in Spanish and has lived in Bolivia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Moldova and Peru. 

Brooke Berman, Senior Project Associate, bberman@poverty-action.org

Brooke Berman received her B.A. in Economics from Amherst College in 2009. As a second year Project Associate at IPA, she works to evaluate the impact of behavioral economics interventions in helping individuals improve their financial health. Brooke currently manages projects in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Tulsa. She also works to build relationships with potential partners to expand IPA’s work in the United States. Brooke’s previous work experience includes: work on IPA’s Trust Microfinance project in Huaraz, Peru; completion of an independent evaluation and cost-benefit analysis of the foreclosure counseling program run by Neighborhood Housing Services of New York City; an internship with Goldman Sachs’ Real Estate Investment Banking division; and work as an investigative journalist for The Daily Guide and Journalists for Human Rights in Accra, Ghana. She is fluent in French and Spanish.

Gautam Nair, Project Associate, gnair@poverty-action.org

Gautam leads the analytics for IPA’s US Household Finance Initiative under the direction of Principal Investigators Jonathan Zinman and Dean Karlan. Before joining IPA, Gautam did research on the implementation of novel, low-cost energy solutions at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He has also completed an internship with the National Knowledge Commission, an advisory body to the Prime Minister of India. Gautam received a B.A. in Economics at Colby College and a Master’s Degree from the Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. In his free time, he enjoys traveling the world, playing squash and tennis, and subjecting his friends to his experimental approach to Indian cooking.

Scott Nelson, Project Associate, snelson@poverty-action.org

Scott Nelson is an Assistant Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a graduate of Yale University. His research interests include consumer/mortgage credit, consumer expectation formation, microfinance and health, with a special interest in self-control models. Scott has previously studied or done research in Honduras, China, Russia, and the Philippines, and currently lives in New Haven, CT.