Connector
Rae Hathaway (Rachel Binder-Hathaway)
Rachel is a Behavioral Economist and Research Consultant with the United Nations, and separately The World Bank. She holds an MPA from Harvard, where she continues to work as a Research and Teaching Fellow. Broadly speaking, her work sits at the intersection of Gender Equity, Behavioral Science, International Development and Program Evaluation. Over the past decade, Rachel’s work has focused on extending education, empowerment and economic development opportunities to vulnerable children and women so that they might overcome the barriers created by gender constraints and poverty.
Rae presently serves three primary roles: as a Gender Specialist with UNDP, where she is developing the UN’s Global Strategy for Digitization, STEM and Inclusive Economic Growth; as an Economist with The World Bank; and as a Behavioral Scientist/Gender Specialist with UN Women. Prior to these experiences, Rae led the global training vertical at MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) under the direction of Nobel Laureates Ester Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee. There, she provided capacity building, curriculum development and grant support to seven regional offices across the US, South Asia, Latin America, Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. Additionally, she co-led J-PAL’s education courses and internal staff research trainings. She has worked as Lead Grant Writer for GlobalGiving; and Behavioral Research Fellow for Harvard’s Women and Public Policy Program, where she conducted research promoting Gender Diversity and Inclusive Organizational Design.
In 2018, she was Content Lead for Harvard’s Women in Power Conference, co-chairing the Women in International Development panel, and running the conference’s workshop on Organizational Design (promoting gender equity, diversity and inclusion in the workplace).
Rachel has developed Behavioral Economics programs on behalf of the Australian, Bosnian (BiH), and Nigerian governments (research topics include gender equity, DEI, and mitigating corruption in governmental supply chains). Beyond this, she has traveled extensively to Southeast Asia and Africa working on human rights initiatives, including a multiyear microfinance research project in Bangladesh/India; research and consulting projects with Grameen Bank under the leadership of Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus; human rights advocacy on behalf of street children in Southeast Asia as Founder and President of Seeds of Change Consulting; and through her work as Chair of UUSC’s Economic Justice Department.
Honors include: 2020 Spirit of Maine Achievement Award; 2018 MacArthur Award recipient; 2018 BE Works Visiting Scholar; 2016 Harvard Dean’s Award for Excellence in Student Teaching; 2013-14 HKS Henry Brooks Public Service Fellow; 2012 Fulbright Fellow; 2011 Gilman Scholar; 2011 Pearson National Scholar; 2011 USA Today All-Academic College Team.
