Welcome to my webpage. I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at the Stanford King Center on Global Development  for the academic year 2024–25. In 2025, I will join the Department of Education, Brown University. as an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Education.

My research lies at the intersection of education, innovation, and economic development. I study how education systems can cultivate higher-order skills—particularly innovation, STEM thinking, and adaptive problem-solving—and how these capabilities shape economic opportunity. I also investigate how new technologies, teaching models, and institutional designs diffuse through public education systems, and why promising innovations often fail to scale.

Broadly, I aim to understand the two-way relationship between education and innovation: how education fuels idea generation and growth, and how innovation transforms the demands placed on education systems. My work combines tools from field experiments, institutional economics, and the economics of diffusion, often in partnership with governments and NGOs.

I am also a visiting researcher at Aalto University and a research collaborator with the Development Innovation Lab at the University of Chicago.

I completed my Ph.D. in Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2024, and was a 2023 NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow

I have completed my Ph.D. in Economics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2024 and have been an NAEd/Spencer Dissertation Fellow 2023. 

Find my latest CV here. You can email me at salonig-at-stanford-dot-edu

Primary Fields: Economics and Education, Labor Economics

Secondary Fields: Economics of Innovation