Isabella Dobrescu—Research Principal

Associate Professor Isabella Dobrescu is the Deputy Director of UNSW’s Scientia Education Academy. A microeconometrician by training, she is currently involved in several evaluation studies designed to identify 'what works' in education, providing insights into ways to address the challenges of modern higher education. Her broader research spans cognition and decision-making, with a focus on economic well-being.

Isabella is an Associate Professor of Economics at UNSW Business School. Her interests are in labour, public finance, health and applied econometrics. She has primarily focused her structural work on topics related to consumption and saving dynamics, as well as studying risk-taking and cognition via nonparametric partial identification methods. More recently, she combines theory, empirical analysis and randomised controlled trials to help design interventions that aim to improve educational outcomes using technology. Isabella is also the Deputy Director (Research) of UNSW's Scientia Education Academy, the co-chair of the STEP UP initiative in Education, a CEPAR Associate Investigator, and an editor of the Journal of Pension Economics & Finance.