Ceren Baysan is an Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Essex and an affiliate of Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT. She is a political and development economist. Her current research is on political accountability, polarization, and social and economic integration in illiberal democracies. 

Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University and the International Crisis Group and Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. In 2018, Ceren received a PhD in agricultural and resource economics from the University of California, Berkeley. After receiving her BCom from McGill University, she started her career as a research associate at the Centre for Microfinance in Chennai and Thanjavur, India. Ceren goes by she or they.