Nava Ashraf is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is also Director of Research of the Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. She applies insights from psychology and economics to understand decision making, with the aim of improving the design of development programs. Her research has focused on technology adoption, intra-household decision making, and employee motivation, with applications in health, agriculture, and microfinance.

Her most recent field experiments in Zambia have evaluated the role of pricing and intra-household barriers in the adoption of health practices and have designed incentives for innovative health services delivery. Her research has been published in the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives.