Both professors will start in August for Fall Semester 2021.
Berlin, 3 May 2021 – The Hertie School will welcome two new professors in August 2021, furthering its expertise in the fields of data science and economics. Lynn Kaack will join the School as Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy and Arianna Ornaghi as Assistant Professor of Economics.
“I am thrilled to welcome Professors Kaack and Ornaghi to our growing faculty,” said Acting President Mark Hallerberg. “Professor Ornaghi will build on the Hertie School’s strong expertise in evidence-based political economic research and Professor Kaack’s work on machine learning and climate policy will be an integral part of our ground-breaking new Master of Data Science for Public Policy.”
Professor Ornaghi comes from the University of Warwick, where she has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow since 2017. An applied microeconomist who specialises in political economy, Ornaghi’s research focuses on forces that shape the behaviour of public officials, such as police officers and judges.
Her paper, "Who Watches the Watchmen? Local News and Police Behavior in the United States" with Nicola Mastrorocco (Trinity College Dublin) was awarded the European Economic Association Young Economist Award 2020. Ornaghi earned a PhD in Economics from MIT in 2017 and BSc and MSc degrees in Economics and Social Sciences from Bocconi University.
“I'm an economist, but I also work on topics that are clearly very much at the intersection of political science, which fits well with other research being done at the Hertie School,” said Ornaghi. “I am also really excited to work alongside new colleagues from the school’s Data Science Lab and Centres of Competence. Many of my projects rely on analysing large amounts of text, so I use similar methodologies to peers at Hertie working in other areas using applied data science.”
Professor Kaack joins the Hertie School from the ETH Zürich, where she was a Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer in the Energy Politics Group. She is a chair and co-founder of the organisation Climate Change AI and a member of the Austrian Council on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, an advisory board of the Austrian Ministry for Climate Action. Her research uses statistics and machine learning to inform climate policy in the energy sector.
She has published on energy forecasting and the decarbonisation of freight transportation in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) and Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Proceedings. Kaack holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy and a master's in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as an MSc and BSc in Physics from the Freie Universität Berlin.
“I am especially looking forward to teaching in the Master of Data Science for Public Policy programme, as my first course is something I’ve had in mind for several years – artificial intelligence and climate change,” said Kaack. “AI can help with climate change mitigation and adaptation, for example, through basic research or engineering, and I am particularly interested in its role for policy analysis and planning. It will be exciting to train students in an area that requires skills firmly anchored in several disciplines.”
The Hertie School in Berlin prepares exceptional students for leadership positions in government, business, and civil society. The school offers master’s, doctoral and executive education programmes distinguished by interdisciplinary and practice-oriented teaching, as well as outstanding research. Its extensive international network positions it as an ambassador of good governance, characterised by public debate and engagement. The school was founded in 2003 by the Hertie Foundation, which remains its major funder. The Hertie School is accredited by the state and the German Science Council. www.hertie-school.org
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