Rana Hendy is the principal investigator of the Egypt Economic Development and Policies project at the American University in Cairo (AUC).
Dr. Hendy is an Economist and Policy Analyst specializing in labor and gender economics, with a Ph.D. from the Paris School of Economics and CREST-INSEE in France (2011). She is currently an Assistant Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo (AUC), where she also serves as Director of the Master’s Program in Public Policy.
Dr. Hendy's research focuses on labor and demographic policies in developing countries, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Her current work addresses post-COVID challenges for female employment in Arab economies, gender inequality, inequality of opportunity in education, labor markets, family formation, international migration, and the impact of trade and fiscal policies on inequality and poverty.
She is a Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum (ERF) in Cairo, where she previously served as Thematic Director for Equity and Inequality and the Gender themes between 2012 and 2015. She has consulted for several international organizations, including the World Bank, the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA), and the Middle East Council on Global Affairs.
Previously, Dr. Hendy was an Assistant Professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (2016–2019) and at the College of Business and Economics at Qatar University. She also served as an Economist at ERF from 2011 to 2014.
Her academic work has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Demographic Research, Applied Economics, International Journal of Educational Development, The Journal of North African Studies, and International Trade Journal. She has contributed to four Oxford University Press volumes on labor markets in the MENA region.