How a quantum scientist, a nurse, and an economist are joining the fight against global poverty
MIT's MicroMasters in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), jointly led by the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and MIT Open Learning, equips students from diverse educational and professional backgrounds with the data science skills necessary to build a new career in combating global poverty.
A recent graduate from the programme, Sofia Martinez Galvez, who is a former quantum scientist and now the co-founder of a nonprofit focused on tackling education in sub-Saharan Africa, told MIT News about the programme, “If someone told me a few years ago, when I was doing research in quantum physics, that I would be starting my own organisation at the intersection of education and poverty, I would have said they were crazy. From my first MicroMasters course, I knew I made the right choice. The instructors used mathematics, models and data to understand society.”
A trip to Ghana changed Sofia Martinez Galvez’s life. In 2021, she volunteered at a nonprofit that provides technology and digital literacy training to people in the West African country. As she was setting up computers and connecting cables, Martinez SM ʼ23 witnessed extreme poverty. The experience was transformative. That same year, she left her job in quantum cryptography in Spain and enrolled in the MITx MicroMasters online program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy (DEDP), which teaches learners how to use data-driven tools to help end global poverty.
By 2023, Martinez completed the MIT DEDP master’s program. Today, she is the co-founder of Learning Alliance, a new nonprofit that will counter sub-Saharan Africa’s learning crisis by introducing evidence-based teaching practices to teachers. She plans to move to Africa this summer.
“If someone told me a few years ago, when I was doing research in quantum physics, that I would be starting my own organization at the intersection of education and poverty, I would have said they were crazy,” Martinez says. “From my first MicroMasters course, I knew I made the right choice. The instructors used mathematics, models, and data to understand society.”