Tamara Jayasundera
Tamara Jayasundera is a Research Professor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Her research focuses on the analysis of supply and demand of education, and linking education to a changing workforce. She is currently researching the impact of the Great Recession on employment by education, industry, and occupation. In addition, she is identifying job and hiring growth by occupation and industry as we emerge out of the recession.
Her previous research has focused primarily on program evaluation, intergenerational educational mobility, and education in developing countries. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Jayasundera served as the Senior Research Analyst at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC). There she explored racial differences in loan origination and performance in the mortgage industry in the Washington DC metro area. Prior to that, at the Academy for Educational Development (AED), she evaluated the effectiveness of a primary school development program in Jamaica.
Dr. Jayasundera earned her B.A. at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka and her M.A. and doctorate in Economics at American University. Her dissertation focused on evaluating the short and long-term impact of a primary school development program in Indonesia. The thesis is concerned with the efficacy and role of the program in facilitating the intergenerational educational mobility.