About

Hi, I'm Ali.

I'm a Behavioral & Data Scientist working at the CEB Secretariat, UN Common System. An economist with a data science and software developer skill set, I build statistical models for analysis and prediction, develop data pipelines, software, and dashboards, create machine-learning and LLM-supported tools, and design causal inference strategies and experiments to understand human behavior and inform policy.

I have an academic background. I hold a PhD in Economics and Management from the University of Trento, Italy. After my doctorate, I worked as a researcher and lab manager at institutions including the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods (now Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics), the University of Bologna, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse. (See Experience section for details.)

Along the way, I have been fortunate to work with researchers across many disciplines: economists, psychologists, anthropologists, biologists, computer scientists, and mathematicians. Together with my co-authors, I have published a variety of work on cooperation, reciprocity, group decision-making, social learning, cultural evolution in impactful field-specific and interdisciplinary journals. (See Research section to read the papers.)

I am an experimentalist by training (and at heart), but my work draws on methods from several fields, including microeconomics, applied economics, causal inference, game theory, evolutionary biology, agent-based modeling, and social choice theory.

Behavioral Economics

Software
Engineering

Data Science & AI

Experimentation &
Causal Inference

Research

Peer-reviewed publications

Published

Cognitive appeal promotes the persistence of inefficient solutions and hinders cumulative cultural evolution

with Manvir Singh, Antoine Jacquet, Haneul Jang, Maxime Derex

Nature Communications (2026)

Published

The roles of cultural transmission and causal reasoning in the cultural evolution of technology

with Paula Ibáñez De Aldecoa and Maxime Derex

PNAS Nexus (2026)

Supplementary Materials

Published

From Open to Closed Societies: Inequality, Migration, and Women Rights

with Marco Casari and Maurizio Lisciandra

Journal of Development Economics (2026)

Published

Reciprocity evolves more readily in competitive than cooperative socio-ecologies

with Angelo Romano and Carsten K. W. De Dreu

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2025)

Supplementary Materials

Published

Multi-lab collaboration

Competition and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experimental designs

with C. Huber, A. Dreber, J. Huber, M. Johannesson, M. Kirchler, U. Weitzel, ..., F. Holzmeister

PNAS (2023)

Published

Review paper

Direct and indirect reciprocity among individuals and groups

with Angelo Romano and Junhui Wu

Current Opinion in Psychology (2022)

Published

The stability of conditional cooperation: beliefs alone cannot explain the decline of cooperation in social dilemmas

with Luciano Andreozzi and Matteo Ploner

Scientific Reports (2020)

Supplementary Materials

Published

Software paper

zBrac—A multilanguage tool for z-Tree

with Anna Marie Schröter

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance (2019)

Supplementary Materials

Work in Progress

Writing paper

Generating representative preferences: An algorithm to enumerate root profiles

with Fatma Aslan, Sebastian Kanunzinger and Jochen Staudacher

Writing paper

Wisdom of crowds under social influence: a comparison of voting rules

with Annika Hennes

Dormant

Reciprocity in Dictator Games: An Experimental Study

with Luciano Andreozzi and Marco Faillo

CEEL Working Papers (2021)

Working Paper

Experience & Education

CEB Secretariat, United Nations Common System

Data and Behavioral Scientist

2024 – Present

Geneva, Switzerland

Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse

Postdoctoral Researcher

2022 – 2024

Toulouse, France

University of Bologna

Postdoctoral Researcher

2021 – 2022

Bologna, Italy

Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Lab Manager

2018 – 2021

Bonn, Germany

University of Trento

PhD in Economics and Management

2014 – 2019

Trento, Italy

Istanbul Bilgi University

M.Sc. in Economics & Lab Manager

2010 – 2014

Istanbul, Türkiye

Istanbul University

BA in Economics

2006 – 2010

Istanbul, Türkiye

Teaching

Course / Material	Institution	Year	Location
Introduction to Python & Experiments with oTree	International Max Planck Research Schools (IMPRS) Summer School	2023	Immenstaad, Germany
Games and Agents: Agent-Based Modeling	Leiden University, Conflict and Cooperation Laboratory	2022	Leiden, Netherlands
Programming Experiments with oTree	University of Erfurt	2021	Germany (Online)
R Programming for Mathematics	University of Trento, Department of Economics and Management	2021	Trento, Italy
Version Control with Git (Turkish)	Ulusal Araştırma Verileri Sempozyumu	2021	Turkey (Online)
Programming Experiments with oTree	Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods	2020	Bonn, Germany
Introduction to ggplot2	Judgement and Decision Making (JDMx) Workshop	2019	Trento, Italy
z-Tree Programming	Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods	2018	Bonn, Germany
Game Theory (T.A.)	Trento University	2017	Trento, Italy
z-Tree Programming (with Matteo Ploner)	Ca' Foscari University	2017	Venice, Italy
Game Theory (T.A.)	Istanbul Bilgi University	2013	Istanbul, Turkey
Advanced Microeconomics (T.A.)	Istanbul Bilgi University	2012–2013	Istanbul, Turkey
Intermediate Microeconomics (T.A.)	Istanbul Bilgi University	2012–2013	Istanbul, Turkey
z-Tree Programming	Istanbul Bilgi University	2012, 2014, 2016	Istanbul, Turkey