Mary Ann Bates is the executive director of J-PAL North America, a regional office of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, a research center at MIT that aims to reduce poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by scientific evidence. She testified to the federal Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking on behalf of J-PAL in February 2017.
Bates is a co-chair of J-PAL North America’s State and Local Innovation Initiative, which provides resources to governments interested in testing important policy questions with randomized evaluations. She was also instrumental in designing and launching the U.S. Health Care Delivery Initiative, which supports building the evidence base on interventions that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery.
Bates holds a master's degree in public policy from the University of California at Berkeley and has conducted research as a Fulbright Scholar in Switzerland.
