Fei Yuan has been selected as the first Tessa Jowell Research Fellow of the Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program. Fei is currently pursuing her PhD in education policy and program evaluation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, she has held positions in the Office of the Chief Economist Africa Region of the World Bank, the Global Economic Governance Initiative, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Development Bank of Latin America. In these roles, she has contributed to numerous publications, with specific focus on economic returns to education, teacher performance, skills development, and girls’ education. Fei also holds a Masters of Arts in international relations and economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and international economics from Beijing Foreign Studies University. With the support of this fellowship, Fei will conduct an impact evaluation of the “Play to Learn” project and national teacher in-service training for the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education in the Gambia to further the Ministry’s goal of improving student literacy and numeracy. The Felloowship is named in honor of the late Baroness Tessa Jowell, a founding member of the Harvard Ministerial Program Advisory Board.