Erik works as a Research Associate in the Liberia office on the GiveDirectly unconditional cash transfer and agricultural market access intervention project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development. Before joining IPA, Erik worked as an agricultural extension agent in Northern Ghana. He earned a BS in Animal Sciences from Cornell University and an MSc in African Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science where he wrote his dissertation on relative risk tendencies of different demographic groups and their respective impacts on the potential for uptake of novel agricultural technologies based on field research in Ghana. He speaks Italian, Spanish, and Dagbani.