Leadership
APES Lab is led by researchers and practitioners who believe in the power of computational methods to improve policy outcomes. Our team combines expertise in economics, computer science, and public policy.
Leadership team
Dr. Maria Chen
Founding Director & CEO
PhD Economics, Harvard '12 | BA Mathematics, Berkeley '07
Maria founded APES Lab in 2023 after realizing that traditional economic models were failing to capture the complexity she observed in real policy outcomes. Her dissertation at Harvard on 'Heterogeneous Agent Responses to Interest Rate Shocks' won the AEA Best Dissertation Award. She spent 8 years at MIT before leaving to start APES Lab, and still teaches a graduate seminar on computational economics each fall. When not thinking about simulations, she's an avid rock climber and has summited three 14ers in Colorado.
Research Focus
Monetary policy transmission, agent heterogeneity, computational methods
Dr. Antonio Rodriguez
Chief Research Officer
PhD Computer Science, Stanford '16 | MS Statistics, USP '11
Antonio's journey to APES Lab started with a simple question during his PhD at Stanford: 'Why do economic models assume everyone behaves the same way?' This question led him to agent-based modeling and eventually to DeepMind, where he worked on multi-agent reinforcement learning for 4 years. He joined APES Lab as a founding team member and has been instrumental in designing SANE's architecture. Antonio is originally from São Paulo and maintains collaborations with researchers across Latin America.
Research Focus
Multi-agent systems, reinforcement learning, simulation methodology
Dr. Aisha Okonkwo
Director of Policy Engagement
PhD Economics, MIT '14 | MPA, Princeton '09 | BA, University of Lagos '06
Aisha spent a decade watching well-intentioned policies fail in developing countries—often because policymakers couldn't anticipate how people would actually respond. At the World Bank, she led evaluations of cash transfer programs in 6 African countries. She joined APES Lab because she believes simulation can prevent costly policy mistakes before they happen. Aisha splits her time between Berkeley and Washington DC, where she maintains relationships with federal agencies and international organizations. She's also the proud parent of twin 7-year-olds.
Research Focus
Development economics, policy evaluation, behavioral responses to interventions
Dr. Kenji Yamamoto
Lead Research Scientist
PhD Computer Science, Stanford '20 | BS, University of Tokyo '15
Kenji wrote his first agent-based model at 16, simulating traffic patterns in his hometown of Kyoto. That early fascination led him through a PhD at Stanford's HAI and eventually to APES Lab, where he leads development of the SANE framework's core agent architecture. He's particularly interested in how LLMs can capture the 'bounded rationality' that makes real humans different from the rational agents in textbook models. Kenji is an open-source enthusiast and maintains several popular ABM libraries on GitHub.
Research Focus
LLM agents, behavioral modeling, open-source simulation tools
Dr. Lars Peterson
Senior Research Scientist
PhD Economics, University of Minnesota '08 | BA, Carleton College '03
Lars spent 12 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, where he became convinced that DSGE models, while elegant, were missing something fundamental about how monetary policy actually works. His 2019 paper 'The Limits of Representative Agent Models' has been cited over 500 times and helped establish the case for heterogeneous agent approaches in central banking. At APES Lab, he leads calibration efforts to ensure our simulations match real-world data. Lars is originally from Minnesota and remains a devoted Vikings fan despite decades of heartbreak.
Research Focus
Monetary economics, DSGE vs ABM, model calibration and validation
Sarah Mitchell
Chief Operating Officer
MBA, Wharton '10 | BA Political Science, Georgetown '05
Sarah has spent her career making research organizations run. After 8 years at Brookings and 5 at the Center for Global Development, she knows how to build the operational infrastructure that lets researchers focus on research. She joined APES Lab because she was tired of watching brilliant ideas die due to poor execution—and because Maria convinced her over coffee that simulation could actually change how policy gets made. Sarah handles everything from HR to partnerships to making sure the coffee machine works. She has two rescue dogs named Keynes and Hayek.
Scientific Advisory Board
Our research is guided by leading scholars in economics, computer science, and complex systems. Advisors provide input on research priorities and methodological approaches.
Prof. Janet Yellen
UC Berkeley (former Federal Reserve Chair)
Monetary PolicyProf. Daron Acemoglu
MIT
Political EconomyProf. Susan Athey
Stanford GSB
Economics & MLProf. Raj Chetty
Harvard
Economic MobilityDr. Geoffrey West
Santa Fe Institute
Complex SystemsProf. Emmanuel Saez
UC Berkeley
Public EconomicsBoard of Directors
Our board provides governance oversight and strategic guidance. Directors bring diverse perspectives from academia, finance, law, and public policy.
James Morrison
Former CEO, PolicyTech Foundation
Dr. Maria Chen
APES Lab
Patricia Nguyen
Partner, Sequoia Capital
Prof. Michael Kremer
University of Chicago (Nobel Laureate)
Adriana Silva
Former Deputy Governor, Banco de México
David Washington
Partner, Simpson Thacher