Master of Public Policy (MPP) candidate at The University of Chicago
jballesteros [at] uchicago.eduI am a Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Chicago Harris School pursuing the Data Analytics and Global Conflicts specializations at Harris, working at the intersection of causal inference, technology governance, and development policy. I am a Fellow at UChicago’s Existential Risk Laboratory (XLab), where I am learning about AI governance and policy.
Before Harris, I built evidence-based tools for governments, multilaterals, and private-sector clients across Latin America. Most recently, at DiDi Global, I ran marketplace experiments (A/B and quasi-experimental designs) across three Mexican cities to optimize a MXN 3.7B annual GMV portfolio, and built the dashboards and pipelines that turned those results into insights for senior leadership. Earlier, at Fundación IDEA and C230 Consulting, I worked on impact evaluations, M&E systems and toolkits for clients including the U.S. Department of State, USAID–Chemonics, AMEXCID, Sanofi, Fundación Amparo, and multiple Mexican state governments. I also founded DataCol, an open-data platform that supported real-time COVID-19 monitoring in Colima and was later transferred to the State Health Secretariat.