Parag Pathak — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

Recipient of the 2018 John Bates Clark Medal for his work blending institutional knowledge, theoretical sophistication, and empirical analysis.
Elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025.
Serves as the Class of 1922 Professor of Economics at MIT.
Co-founder of Avela Education, a company providing software and services for school districts.
Founder of MIT's School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative (SEII), focusing on education, human capital, and income distribution.
Known for his work in market design, including designing a new student assignment system for Boston Public Schools, adopted in 2005.
Holds a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.

Biography

Parag A. Pathak is the Class of 1922 Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also a founding co-director of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Group on Market Design and the founder of MIT's School Effectiveness and Inequality Initiative (SEII), a laboratory dedicated to studying education, human capital, and income distribution.