Michelle Poulin is a sociologist working in the Africa Region Gender Innovation Lab within the World Bank's Africa Region's Chief Economist's office. Her research interests include culture, economic activity, family and changes in the family, and methods of data collection. She is a co-investigator of a panel study that followed initially never-married women and men into marriage in central Malawi. Recently she has been involved in qualitative research in Liberia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Boston University, and completed postdoctoral training at the Population Studies Centers at the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University.