David Alzate was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador. He is pursuing an MPP at Yale with the aim of identifying ways to implement and scale evidence-based solutions in international development. 
David spent four years working at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At J-PAL, he led government partnerships on anti-corruption policy with the Ministry of Economics and Finance of Peru; on social policy targeting with the Ministry of Indigenous Rights of Ecuador; and on digital governance innovations with the Mexico City Digital Agency of Public Innovation. He also worked with J-PAL Europe in Madrid, Spain, where he managed a partnership with the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration to conduct dozens of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) on new social programs implemented by local governments and NGOs.
David also has extensive grant management experience, including managing J-PAL’s Governance Initiative — an $18M research fund with a portfolio of over 120 RCTs of interventions designed to improve governance in low- and middle-income countries. He led donor relations with the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, & Development Agency for three years.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service with Honors in international political economy, magna cum laude, from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a native Spanish speaker and proficient in French.