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

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

Shuya Yang is a Post Doc Researcher at the e61 Institute.
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Shuya Yang

Post Doc Researcher

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

Research Economist

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

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 Graduate Economist at the e61 Institute.
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Erin Clarke

Graduate Economist

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

Research Economist

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

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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

Pre-doctorate Analyst

Jiaqi Luo is a Pre-doctorate Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Jiaqi Luo

Pre-doctorate Analyst

Ian Hoefer Marti is a PhD Internship Analyst at the e61 Institute.
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Ian Hoefer Marti

PhD Internship Analyst

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

People and Operations Manager

Gianni La Cava

Research Director and Head of Academic Engagement

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

Dan Andrews is Research Director and Head of Policy Engagement at the e61 Institute. Previously he was 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 research documents the productivity implications of the COVID-19 shock and structural reforms, and has produced seminal 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, globalization & inflation and the inequality-social mobility-growth nexus.

For more information about Dan publication and experience go here.

Jo Wood

Chief Operating Officer

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

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

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

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.

Shuya Yang

Post-doctorate Researcher

Shuya Yang is a Post-doctorate Researcher at the e61 Institute.

Her doctorate study explores topics in housing and climate transition risks, with a focus on solving policy-oriented questions while developing suitable econometrics models in a data-rich environment.

Shuya holds a PhD in Econometrics and a Bachelor of Economics from Monash University

Nicole Adams

Research Economist

Nicole Adams is a 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.

Jack Buckley

Research Economist

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.

Matthew Maltman

Research Economist

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

Graduate Economist

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.

Aaron Wong

Research Economist

Aaron Wong is a research economist at e61 Institute. He is passionate about urban economics and answering public policy questions using micro datasets.

Aaron previously worked at the Reserve Bank of Australia, where he analysed Australia’s housing markets, contributed to economic forecasts and examined financial risks to the RBA’s domestic portfolio. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce from the University of New South Wales.

Zach Hayward

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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.

Matt Elias

Pre-doctorate Analyst

Matt graduated with a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Sydney in 2021, majoring in Economics and Econometrics.  Matt 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.

Elyse Dwyer

Pre-doctorate Analyst

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

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

Jiaqi Luo

Pre-Doc Research Economist

Jiaqi recently graduated with First Class Honours from the Bachelor of Commerce (Hons) at the University of Melbourne.

Jiaqi is interested in labor economics and conducting policy experiments in the labor market to examine corresponding policy implications.

Francesca Gnocchi

Office Manager

Francesca has been working in operations 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, create and foster a collaborative and positive culture.