Social Science Research Associate V
Areas of Expertise: impact evaluation methods, quasi-experimental research design, survey design and analysis, international development, Latin American Studies
Thomas Boswell joined the Ray Marshall Center in the spring of 2021 as a Graduate Research Assistant. He joined our full-time staff in the summer of 2022 as a research associate. His work focuses primarily on survey design and impact evaluation. At the RMC, Thomas uses quantitative and qualitative methods to identify the impact of workforce development programs in Texas, rehousing initiatives in the City of Austin, and farmer cooperative programs in Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also leveraged his background working in Latin America to study the relationship between occupational safety and health practices in the agricultural industry and household resiliency in Central America.
Prior to joining the Ray Marshall Center, Thomas has focused on mixed-methods approaches to impact evaluation research. He has developed expertise in the use of statistical methods to identify outcomes that can be used to inform policymakers, NGOs, and international institutions. He has used data science and mapping software to study corruption in Honduras, Climate impacts on occupational health, progress towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, and migration.
In 2016, Thomas started his early career interning with the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute where he worked with early- and mid-career foreign service officers in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. He has worked internationally in Nicaragua teaching English and Paraguay as an impact evaluation assistant with Innovations for Poverty Action, collecting baseline data and managing field operations. Thomas employed his native fluency in Spanish during his time as a legal services specialist for unaccompanied minors at the American Bar Association’s South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Project (ProBAR). In this role, he provided Know Your Rights presentations and conducted legal screenings to unaccompanied migrant children housed in Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters along the south Texas border.
Thomas holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in Plan II Honors and Latin American Studies. He received his master’s degree in global policy studies from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin in 2022.