Abhijit Banerjee applies science to combating poverty. He and Esther Duflo are directors of the MIT-based Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab J-PAL, a global network of researchers driven by a belief in the power of scientific evidence to understand what really helps the poor, and what does not. Banerjee, Duflo and their colleagues conduct randomized evaluations to test and improve the effectiveness of policies and programs and disseminate their results to policymakers, nonprofit organizations and foundations. The lab and its directors were recently awarded the 2014/15 Albert O. Hirschman Prize by the Social Science Research Council. In addition to his research publications, Banerjee's books include, with Duflo, Poor Economics, chosen as Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year for 2011. Past president of the Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of the Econometric Society, he has also been a Guggenheim Fellow and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and was appointed in 2012 to the U.N. Secretary-General’s High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. In 2014 Banerjee was honored with the Bernard Harms Prize, awarded every two years by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.