About Me

I am a PhD Candidate in Economics in a joint program between KU Leuven (at the Leuven Economics of Education Research center) and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. I am fortunate to be advised by Professor Gloria Bernal and Professor Kristof De Witte.
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My research focuses on human capital accumulation at the intersection of Development Economics and the Economics of Education. I use causal inference and data science methods to study how we can improve educational outcomes in developing countries.

My primary research interests include:

  • The impact of educational technology and AI on student engagement.
  • Gender dynamics and peer effects in the classroom.
  • The effects of infrastructure and natural resource allocation on human capital.

Job Market Paper

The Tailoring Premium: How AI Design Unlocks Student Engagement and Learning

As schools increasingly adopt Artificial Intelligence, policymakers face a crucial trade-off between deploying inexpensive, general-purpose models and investing in tools tailored to the curriculum. We provide the first large-scale causal evidence on this choice. In a randomized control trial with 2,440 secondary students, we find that offering a curriculum-tailored chatbot increases immediate learning by 0.126 standard deviations (ITT), while a generic chatbot has no effect. This difference is driven entirely by student engagement: the tailored tool increased module completion by 15.5 percentage points. For students induced to complete the module by the tailored design, the effect is larger and more durable, increasing long-term knowledge retention by 0.23 standard deviations. Our results show that the learning gains from educational AI are unlocked by deep curricular integration, which succeeds by first solving the fundamental problem of student engagement.

View Paper (PDF)

Experience the Future of Peer Review

As part of my research into applied AI, I developed this tool to demonstrate the power of multi-agent systems in academic writing. It simulates the rigorous, section-by-section peer review process of a top-tier economics journal. Upload a paper or paste text to receive instant, constructive feedback designed to elevate your research.

Ready to try it? Use the username JaimeBot to log in.

Research Highlights

My doctoral research delves into the following key areas:

  • AI-Powered Learning Support: Investigating how AI can mitigate teacher shortages and enhance student learning outcomes, particularly in resource-constrained environments.
  • Gender Composition Effects: Analyzing the impact of gender ratios in educational settings on student performance and gender equity.
  • Infrastructure Interventions: Evaluating the effectiveness of infrastructure improvements on educational access and quality.
  • Natural Resource Impacts: Examining the influence of the oil industry on educational outcomes and human capital development in resource-rich regions.