Emma Aguila is an assistant professor at the USC Sol Price School of Public of Policy. She was previously a senior economist and director of the RAND Center for Latin American Social Policy (CLASP). Dr. Aguila earned her bachelor’s degree at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de Mexico (ITAM) in Mexico City, and completed her master's and Ph.D. in economics at University College London. She has received several awards for her work on social security systems in Mexico. In 2005, she received the first prize for research in pensions from CONSAR, Mexico. In 2007, Dr. Aguila received the first prize of the Inter-American Award for Research in Social Security; in 2008, she received the RAND Gold Merit Award; and in 2016, she received the High Impact Research Award from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. She has published in The Gerontologist, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Review of Economics and Statistics, among others.
Dr. Aguila has experience designing and implementing field experiments and longitudinal surveys. She is adviser to the Mexican Health and Aging Study (MHAS) survey in Mexico and the Social Protection Survey (EPS) in Latin America, and has advised and participated in research projects at the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom, and the Mexican Ministry of Social Development. Her research interests include pension reform, saving for retirement, access to social security benefits and health care for the vulnerable elderly population and the interrelation between socioeconomic status and health.