Learning
Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Economics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) (2006-2011), with Fulbright Scholarship
Dissertation on intergroup relations in cities, using social psychology and game theory. The dissertation finds that business transactions in multi-ethnic cities can build trust and friendship but don’t reduce prejudice, based on primary research in Trinidad.
Thesis available here. Presentation available here:
Methodological training was in qualitative and quantitative methodologies, program evaluation, regional economic analysis, and urban planning.
MA (Hons) and BA (Hons)King’s College, University of Cambridge (1999-2002)
Courses in: Development Economics; International Relations; Political history of Russia; Econometrics; and Political Philosophy.
Professional development
Accredited Member, Association of Facilitators (2022)
Completed the five-day ‘Foundations in Facilitation Skills’ course, including the ‘Facilitator’s Toolkit’ and ‘Group Dynamics’ trainings.
Certificate in Facilitation, Soliya (2021)
Approximately 30 hours of live and asynchronous training in best practices of online and in-person facilitation and communication.
Neural Networks and Deep Learning, deeplearning.ai (2021)
Foundational concepts, including vectorization, forward and backward propagation. Programming of deep learning algorithms in Python.
Short courses in Group Facilitation methods and emotional intelligence, (2020-2022)
From ICA:UK, the Gestalt Centre, and iDiscover 360.
Some recent things that colleagues said:“[Austin] makes us reassess our underlying assumptions, points to a critical aspect of an issue at hand the rest of us missed or proposes a bolder and more innovative approach. His presentations are well known to be the thought-provoking and galvanizing ones.”
“Austin is a real innovator, thriving on generating new ideas on how things could be done differently and better than the usual modus operandi… This innovative approach is also a great source of inspiration to me as his team member. [Austin] has an incredible skill of reflection and self-reflection, and is constantly working on improving the way we do things as a team and individually.”
“Austin is a terrific colleague, [team leader], and technical expert. I really marvel at his smarts, energy, communication skills, perseverance and creative problem solving. It is an honor to work with him. … He has a gift to really lead people to do more than they think they can and I have seen him take time to develop and encourage younger staff encouraging them to do their very best.”