Research Software Engineer

Dr. Flavio Hafner

During his PhD–at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona and at University College London–Flavio investigated how wages and employment are determined when labor markets are not perfectly competitive. To answer these questions, Flavio integrated data from administrative registries, combined them with geospatial data and applied statistical methods. To separate cause from effect, Flavio combined regression analysis with quasi-experimental research designs. To estimate elasticities in economic models of production and labor supply, Flavio wrote R and python programs that apply versions of the Generalized Method of Moments. 

Flavio then moved to Aalto University for a post-doc. In a project on e-commerce, he improved and extended the data architecture that he built during his PhD. In another project–funded by Jan Wallanders and Tom Hedelius foundation–, Flavio and his co-author studied how professional networks shape employment decisions and research productivity of researchers in U.S. academia. Here, Flavio designed and managed a large relational database of bibliometric data, used machine learning and natural language processing to link records between two data sources, and contributed to the statistical analysis of the linked data. Besides research, Flavio also designed and taught a new graduate-level course in labor economics, ran a reading group and organized research workshops for PhD students.  

Flavio joined the eScience Center in November 2022 as a Research Software Engineer where he wants to apply methods from statistics and computer science to answer research questions. He also wants to make research software more efficient, open source and reusable–for applications within and outside of academia.