James Habyarimana is the Provost Distinguished Associate Professor at the McCourt School of Public
Policy. His research is focused on identifying low-cost strategies to address barriers to better health
and education outcomes in developing countries. Ongoing projects include research to understand
the effectiveness of centralized and decentralized programs, including the role of leadership, toimprove teacher performance in East Africa, as well as how electoral incentives shape the design and
implementation of education and health policies in Tanzania and India. He serves on an Independent
Technical Review Panel for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). He is a founding member and
former co-Director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Innovation, Development and Evaluation
(gui2de). He is an affiliate of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and has been a non
resident fellow at the Center for Global Development.