Maria Franco Gavonel is a Lecturer in Global Social Policy and International Development in the School for Business and Society, University of York. She is an economist with experience in quantitative applied research and policy design. Her work focuses on the intersection of migration, sustainability, and human capital. In HABITABLE, she will develop and test a model of social tipping points. She completed her doctorate in International Development at the University of Oxford and her thesis examines the drivers of youth migration and its impact on children and adolescents’ human capital accumulation in developing countries. She holds a Master of Science in Development Economics and Policy from the University of Manchester and a Bachelor in Economics from the Universidad del Pacifico (Lima, Peru). In the past, she has worked at the Young Lives study (University of Oxford), the World Bank, Save the Children, and the Research Centre of the Universidad del Pacifico, among others.