Dr Rachel Forshaw

Assistant Professor

Rachel is an Assistant Professor of Economics. Her research interests are in applied labour economics, particularly in the areas of gender, inequality, and health. She uses microeconometric techniques, but has a background in computational economics, so likes to use her coding skills to look at measurement problems in new ways. Rachel is a proponent of interdisciplinary research, and mixed method studies. This is because, ultimately, research should affect policy and while the plural of anecdote is not data, data + data-supported anecdotes are a powerful tool of persuasion.

Areas of interest

• Applied Econometrics, Labour Economics, Inequality, Education, Health, Data Science

Qualifications

2020 – PhD in Economics

2014 – MSc in Economics

2011 – MA in Economics

2022 – Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Background

After gaining her PhD, Rachel worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Leeds before joining Heriot Watt in 2020. She has taught at the University of Edinburgh and London School of Economics. Before academia, she worked in fund management