5th Annual SEEDS Conference | April 24–25, 2025
2025 Keynote: “Development and Economic Measurement of Income Distribution Across Space, Groups, and Generations”
Le Wang is the David M. Kohl Chair and Professor at Virginia Tech, where he also serves as Director of the Kohl Centre. His research agenda is grounded in applied microeconomics, with a particular emphasis on causal inference and distributional analysis. Wang’s work addresses fundamental questions concerning the measurement and evolution of income distribution, social mobility, and economic inequality, often advancing the field through the development and application of innovative econometric techniques.
4th Annual SEEDS Conference | April 24 – 26, 2024
2024 Keynote: “Water Quality, Alternative Beverages, and Economic Development”
Francisca Antman is a professor with research interests in international migration and human capital investments, income inequality, poverty traps, adult children’s care for elderly parents, the economic mobility of individuals and families over time and generations, and the allocation of resources within households and families, the endogeneity of race and ethnicity, and economic development in historical perspective. Her current work focuses on the impact of migration on the health and education outcomes for children and parents of migrants remaining in Mexico.
3rd Annual SEEDS Conference: April 27–28, 2023
2023 Keynote Speaker
Dean Jolliffe is a lead economist in the Development Data Group of the World Bank and member of the LSMS-ISA team. He has extensive experience in the design and implementation of household surveys and is currently managing ongoing LSMS-ISA work in Ethiopia. He has also worked in the South Asia region at the Bank on poverty assessments for Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal.
Previously, Jolliffe was a research economist at the Economic Research Service of USDA, an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, an assistant professor at the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education in Prague, and a post-doctoral fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute. He holds appointments as a research fellow with the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, and as a research affiliate with the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan.
Jolliffe received his Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.
2nd Annual SEEDS Conference: April 23 – 24, 2020
2022 Keynote Speaker
James Foster, Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, The George Washington University
Conference Program Committee
Shatakshee Dhongde, Allen Hyde, Olga Shemyakina, Anjali Thomas (Georgia Tech)
Natalia Bueno, Paloma Moyano, Renard Sexton (Emory), Charles Hankla (Georgia State)
Inaugural SEEDS Conference 2019
The inaugural SEEDS conference was held on April 26, 2019, at Georgia Tech. The conference brought together more than 20 invited speakers from a variety of disciplines including economics, geography, political science, and sociology. Invited speakers represented several higher education institutes in the area, including Agnes Scott College, Emory University, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University, Spelman College, and the University of Georgia, at Athens.
About SEEDS
SEEDS or South East Exchange of Development Studies is an interdisciplinary research group of scholars conducting research in the broad area of development. The inaugural SEEDS conference in April 2019 featured speakers from several higher education institutes in the area, including Agnes Scott College, Emory University, Georgia State University, Kennesaw State University, Spelman College, and the University of Georgia, at Athens.