Dreams, Evidence, and the Courage to Test: A Personal Reflection on Women, Leadership, and Experiments

There are moments in a researcher’s life that feel less like professional milestones and more like quiet acts of defiance.

For me, choosing to build RCTXImpact (RCTXI) was one of those moments.

In a space where resources are limited, where research is often constrained by institutions rather than inspired by ideas, and where women are still expected to follow rather than lead, I wanted to do something different. I wanted to build an organization led by women, driven by ambition, and grounded not in opinion, but in evidence.

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RCTXI was never meant to be small.
It was meant to ask difficult questions and answer them rigorously.
Where It All Began: The First Experiment
My journey into experimental research did not begin with a large grant or a global collaboration. It began with a question that felt urgent, personal, and deeply relevant to the context around me:
What is social media doing to the mental health of young people in a developing economy?
In Pakistan, like many developing countries, social media adoption has grown faster than our understanding of its consequences. Young people are connected, but not always supported. Visible, but often vulnerable.
So we designed our first randomized controlled trial.
We measured depression, anxiety, stress, self-esteem, and well-being. We tested whether limiting social media use could improve mental health outcomes. We asked participants not just how they felt, but how their behaviors, sleep, and daily lives were changing.
It was not just an academic exercise.
It was a realization:
Evidence has power.
When you move from assumptions to causal findings, the conversation changes. Policymakers listen differently. Institutions respond differently. Even the researcher begins to see the world differently.
From One Study to a Research Vision
We moved next into financial inclusion and women’s empowerment, asking whether digital financial literacy and access could reshape economic agency for women. Could knowledge translate into autonomy? Could access translate into opportunity?
And now, our work is expanding into one of the most under-researched and marginalized spaces:
The gig economy for transgender individuals.
In many societies, transgender communities face systemic exclusion from formal labor markets. But digital platforms, if designed inclusively, may offer new pathways to dignity, income, and independence.
We are now working to test this. Not assume it. Not theorize it.
But rigorously evaluate it.
Each project is different.
But they are connected by a single belief:
Inclusion must be proven—not promised.
Why RCTXI Exists
RCTXI is not just a research initiative.
It is a statement.
A statement that women can lead high-impact, methodologically rigorous research.
A statement that developing economies are not just sites of data collection, but centers of knowledge production.
A statement that ambition and evidence can coexist and reinforce each other.
We are building a space where:
• Women researchers are mentored, supported, and taken seriously
• Experiments are designed to answer real policy questions
• Evidence is translated into action, not left in journals
Because for too long, both leadership and research have been gatekept.
And both needed to change.
The Evolution of Experimental and Behavioral Economics
What makes this moment particularly powerful is that our work is unfolding alongside a broader transformation in economics itself.
Not long ago, economics relied heavily on theory, assumptions, and observational correlations. Policies were often designed based on what seemed logical, not necessarily what worked in practice.
Then came the experimental revolution.
Pioneers like Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer transformed development economics by introducing randomized controlled trials as a tool for policy evaluation. They showed that poverty, education, health, and inequality could be studied not just theoretically, but causally.
At the same time, behavioral economists like Richard Thaler and Daniel Kahneman challenged the idea of perfectly rational individuals, showing how real human behavior, biases, heuristics, and constraints, shapes economic outcomes.
Together, these movements reshaped the discipline.
Economics became more empirical.
More human.
More accountable.
Women at the Frontier of Experimental Economics
Within this transformation, women economists have played a defining role—not just as contributors, but as leaders.
Economists like Esther Duflo have not only advanced experimental methods but also redefined what it means to conduct policy-relevant research. Rachel Glennerster has produced influential work on the design and implementation of large-scale randomized evaluations in development policy. Ulrike Malmendier has explored how behavioral insights shape financial decision-making and economic outcomes.
Their work does more than generate findings.
It changes questions.
It expands priorities.
It opens doors.
And for researchers like me, working in contexts that are often underrepresented in global academia, it offers something equally important:
A sense of possibility.
Where Dreams Meet Evidence
There is something deeply powerful about combining ambition with method.
Dreams alone are not enough.
Data alone is not enough.
But when you bring them together, when a question rooted in lived reality is tested with rigor, you create something transformative. That is what we are trying to build at RCTXI.
Not just research.
Not just leadership.
But a new way of thinking about both.
A Final Reflection
Sometimes I think back to that first experiment, the uncertainty, the limitations, the questions that felt bigger than the resources available.
And I realize that the most important step was not having all the answers.
It was choosing to test the question anyway.
Because in the end, leadership is not about certainty.
It is about courage.
The courage to ask.
The courage to test.
And the courage to prove that a different world is not only imaginable, but measurable.