Joana Costa is a researcher at IPEA (Instituto de Pesquisa Economica Aplicada). She earned her Ph.D. in Economics from PUC-Rio. Previously, she has worked at International Poverty Centre (UNDP-Ipea) on projects related to gender inequalities and poverty (2004-2009). She is currently at Social Policy and Studies Area/IPEA where she is mostly working with impact evaluation of social policies. She has evaluated educational, labor and health policies. Her currently research also includes studies on youth educational and labor market decisions, and educational inequalities at secondary education.