Our Team

The e61 Institute is passionate about developing Australia’s talent pool in the field of economics and econometrics.

We welcome applications from candidates that are intellectually curious and have an outstanding track record, who want to develop their research skills while working on the most interesting economic challenges in the private and public sectors.

Team

Greg Kaplan is the Chairman and Co-founder of e61 Institute.
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Greg Kaplan

Chairman and Co-founder

Michael Brennan is the CEO of e61 Institute.
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Michael Brennan

Chief Executive Officer

Gianni La Cava is a Research Director and Head of Academic Engagement
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Gianni La Cava

Research Director and Head of Academic Engagement

Dan Andrews is a Research Director and Head of Policy Engagement
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Dan Andrews

Research Director and Head of Policy Engagement

Jo Wood is a Chief Operating Officer at the e61 Institute.
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Jo Wood

Chief Operating Officer

Matt Nolan is a Research Manager at the e61 Institute.
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Matt Nolan

Research Manager

Lachlan Vass is a Research Manager at the e61 Institute.
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Lachlan Vass

Research Manager

Nick Garvin is a Research Manager at the e61 Institute.
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Nick Garvin

Research Manager

Silvia Griselda is a Research Manager at the e61 Institute.
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Silvia Griselda

Research Manager

Pelin Akyol is a Senior Research Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Pelin Akyol

Senior Research Economist

Jack Buckley is a Senior Research Economist at e61 Institute.
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Jack Buckley

Senior Research Economist

Nicole Adams is a Senior Research Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Nicole Adams

Senior Research Economist

Aaron Wong is a Senior Research Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Aaron Wong

Senior Research Economist

Matthew Maltman is is a Research Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Matthew Maltman

Research Economist

Erin Clarke is a Research Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Erin Clarke

Research Economist

Rachel Lee is a Research Economist at e61 Institute
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Rachel Lee

Research Economist

Elyse Dwyer is a Pre-doctorate Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Elyse Dwyer

Research Analyst

Matt Elias is a Pre-doctorate Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Matt Elias

Pre-doctorate Analyst

Zach Hayward is a Pre-doctorate Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Zachary Hayward

Pre-doctorate Analyst

Harshit Shah is a PhD Internship Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Harshit Shah

PhD Internship Analyst

Francesca Gnocchi is People and Operations Manager at e61 Institute
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Francesca Gnocchi​

Operations Director

Andrea Way is the Office Manager at e61 Institute
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Andrea Way

Office Manager

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Greg Kaplan

Chairman and Co-founder

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Greg Kaplan co-founded the e61 Institute and is a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

His research spans macroeconomics, labor economics and applied microeconomics, with a focus on the distributional consequences of economic policies and economic forces. He has published extensively on the topics of inequality, risk sharing, unemployment, household formation, migration, fiscal policy and monetary policy.

Greg is an Editor at the Journal of Political Economy, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is also an Economic Consultant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Michael Brennan

Chief Executive Officer

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Michael Brennan is the CEO of the e61 Institute. He is an experienced economic policy professional, having been a former Chair of the Australian Productivity Commission and Deputy Secretary of the Australian Treasury. He has also worked as a Deputy Secretary in the Victorian Treasury, and as a consultant as well as an adviser to Federal and State Treasurers and Ministers for Finance.

Gianni La Cava

Research Director and Head of Academic Engagement

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Gianni La Cava is Research Director and Head of Academic Engagement of e61 Institute. He previously held several senior positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia, including leading a research team – Micro Analysis and Data (MAD) – dedicated to examining macroeconomic issues using microeconomic data. Gianni holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts/Commerce from the University of Sydney.

Gianni’s research focuses on answering big policy questions with micro data and covers topics such as household wellbeing, inequality, the housing market, and the role of the financial sector in the economy.

​​For more information about Gianni's publications go here.

Dan Andrews

Research Director and Head of Policy Engagement

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Dan Andrews is the Research Director and Head of Policy Engagement at the e61 Institute. Previously he was the Head of the Structural Policy Analysis Division at the OECD, where he led teams to analyse the policy drivers of productivity and employment growth.

​As a senior executive at the Australian Treasury, Dan founded the Treasury microdata unit and served as Co-Chair of the OECD Global Forum on Productivity and Australian delegate to the OECD Economic Policy Committee.

Dan's research investigates the productivity implications of the COVID-19 shock and structural reforms. He has also produced influential research on the divergence between frontier and laggard firms, the rise of zombie firms, and bank forbearance.  He has also led research into the scarring effects of recessions, housing markets, globalisation & inflation and the inequality-social mobility-growth nexus.

​For more information about Dan publication and experience go here.

Jo Wood

Chief Operating Officer

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Jo has been running the operations of firms that work at the intersection of economics, policy and data for over 5 years. She trained in Psychology and Business Administration and then went on to work in a range of roles leading operations teams in the Australia, US, Europe, Russian, Africa and Central America, across a wide spectrum of industries. More recently, she has worked at economic consulting firm AlphaBeta Advisors, Accenture and now e61 Institute. Her roles have focused on building operations and managing systems to deliver work with impact.

Matt Nolan

Research Manager

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Matt is a research manager at the e61 Institute and a sessional lecturer at Macquarie University. His research is focused on analysing income distributions using microdata, with a focus on how taxes, transfers, and changes in labour market settings influence the distribution of income.

Matt previously worked at the Inland Revenue Department of New Zealand and as a teaching fellow at Victoria University of Wellington. He holds a PhD in Philosophy (Economics) from Victoria University of Wellington.

Lachlan Vass

Research Manager

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Lachlan is a Research Manager. He leads work at the intersection of economics, data and public policy. His work experience spans the Australian Treasury, the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom and most recently Economic Insights (formerly AlphaBeta). In these roles he brought economics and novel data together to help inform, advise and solve policy issues across a range of policy areas, including social policy, financial markets, trade and labour markets.

Lachlan holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) and Honours (Economics) from the University of Melbourne. 

Nick Garvin

Research Manager

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Nick Garvin is a Research Manager at the e61 institute.

Nick specialises in microeconometric research for Australian economic and financial policy. His experience includes research at RBA and APRA on topics related to superannuation, mortgage debt, payments, and financial-market transactions, and as an econometrics lecturer at UNSW. Nick holds a PhD in Economics from Pompeu Fabra University, a Masters in Economics from London School of Economics, and Bachelor Degrees in Economics and Psychology from Macquarie University.

Silvia Griselda

Research Manager

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Silvia Griselda is a Research Manager at the e61 Institute.

Silvia is an applied micro-economist with interests in education, gender, and labor. In her research she focuses on the determinants of educational inequalities, with a particular focus on gender and disadvantaged students. Her research has been published in top journals, and featured in the Conversation and VoxEu.

Silvia previously work as Post Doctoral Researcher at Bocconi University. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Melbourne.

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Pelin Akyol

Senior Research Economist

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Pelin Akyol is a Senior Research Economist at the e61 Institute.

Her research interests lie in the field of applied microeconomics, particularly economics of education, labor economics, and demographic economics. Her research outputs have been published in top economics journals and also featured in VoxEU and EducationWeek.

Pelin holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Pennsylvania State University and has worked as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Bilkent University, Turkey.

Jack Buckley

Senior Research Economist

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Jack holds a Bachelor of Economics (honours) and a Bachelor of Science (statistics) from the University of New South Wales where he earned First Class Honours and the University Medal in Economics. Prior to joining e61, Jack worked in the Economic Analysis and Policy team at Deloitte Access Economics where he worked on a range of issues in urban economics, the digital economy, sustainability and climate change, health, and education.

Jack is passionate about using innovative data and statistical and econometric tools to conduct evidence-based policy analysis.

Nicole Adams

Research Economist

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Nicole Adams is a Senior Research Economist at the e61 Institute.

She previously worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia in a range of roles, analysing household balance sheets, commercial property markets, capital flows and foreign exchange markets.

Nicole holds an honours degree in Economics from the University of Western Australia.

Aaron Wong

Senior Research Economist

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Aaron Wong is a senior research economist at e61 Institute. His research focuses on the intersection of labour and urban economics, using micro data to understand how location shapes the decisions made by Australians on where to live and work.

Aaron previously worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia, where he analysed Australia’s housing markets, contributed to economic forecasts and examined financial risk to the RBA’s domestic portfolio.

He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales where he graduated with First Class Honours and the University Medal in Economics.

Matthew Maltman

Research Economist

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Matthew Maltman is a Research Economist at the e61 institute.

He previously worked at the Australian Productivity Commission, where he focused on various policy issues including education, public transport, and housing policy. He is passionate about housing affordability and writes on the impact of housing supply reforms globally.

Matt holds a degree in Economics from the University of Western Australia, where he graduated with First Class Honours.

Erin Clarke

Research Economist

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Erin holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Technology Sydney where she earned First Class Honours and the University Medal in Economics. Her Honours thesis evaluates the causal effect of a 2018 childcare subsidy reform on the labour supply of mothers with young children and their demand for childcare.

Erin presented her thesis at the Australian Gender Economics Workshop earlier this year, for which she received the award for Best Rapid Presentation Paper.

Rachel Lee

Rachel Lee

Research Economist

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Rachel is a Research Economist at the e61 Institute.

She holds a Bachelor of Philosophy with First Class Honours in Economics from the University of Western Australia. 

Rachel was previously at Deloitte Access Economics where she worked on projects in a variety of sectors such as the digital economy, education and tourism.

Rachel is interested in the use of microdata and other big datasets to answer key economic problems.

Elyse Dwyer

Research Analyst

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Elyse has recently graduated from the University of Queensland (UQ) with First Class Honours in the Bachelor of Advanced Finance and Economics.

Her Honours thesis focused on understanding the spatial dispersion of firm-level productivity in Australia using BLADE microdata from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Matt Elias

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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Matt graduated with a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Sydney in 2021, majoring in Economics and Econometrics.  Matt's Honours thesis developed a novel technique for robustly testing stochastic dominance relations in the presence of survey non-response, earning First Class Honours and the University Medal. 

Matt is passionate about Applied Economics and using novel Econometric methods to solve problems commonly encountered in empirical research.

Zach Hayward

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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Zachary is a pre-doctoral analyst at the e61 institute. He is interested in using microdata to answer causal questions and novel econometric techniques.

Zach holds a Bachelor of Advanced Finance and Economics (Honours Class I) majoring in economics from the University of Queensland (UQ). His thesis investigated the causal impact of antenatal alcohol consumption on child health outcomes, while correcting for misreporting.

Harshit Shah

PhD Internship Analyst

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Harshit Shah is a PhD Intern at the e61 Institute. He holds a master's degree in economics from the Australian National University and is currently pursuing his PhD in Economics at the same institution. 

His doctoral research investigates the causal effects of improving inheritance rights for women, on their children's educational outcomes. Previously, Harshit worked as a researcher at the John Mitchell Economics of Poverty Lab, where he focused on examining the scalability of early childhood interventions.

Harshit is interested in conducting rigorous research on complex economic dynamics and their impact on public policy.

Francesca Gnocchi

People and Operations Manager

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Francesca has been working within operation roles for over 7 years. She completed a bachelor's degree in Bank and Finance in Italy and then worked as Data Analyst in an energy consulting company. Since moving to Australia, she has worked in different industries. Her focus at e61 is to help build operations systems and to create and foster a collaborative and positive culture.

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Andrea Way

Office Manager

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Andrea joins us following a strong background in both Executive Support and Office Management within both small & large corporations.   She is an accomplished professional with over 30 years’ experience in both London & Australia and is known for her exceptional organisational skills and commitment to delivering results.

Andrea oversees e61's events, social media and website and provides operational and administration support to the team.