Hi! I’m Karsen, and I care deeply about tackling big questions in policy and economics.

I am currently at Stanford, completing my M.S. in Computer Science with a specialization in AI. I’m also working with Professor Paul Milgrom to design markets at Auctionomics; one of our current projects involves building a market for compute. On campus, I’m helping organize a policy agenda at Stanford around abundance, serving on the National Advisory Board of the Haas Center for Public Service, and teaching introductory economics.

I recently graduated from Stanford with a B.A. with Honors in Economics and a B.S. in Mathematics, where I was fortunate to be advised by Professors Pete Klenow, Nicholas Bloom, and Neale Mahoney.

In the past, I’ve applied algorithmic market design and AI to build the future for frontline work at ReadyOn AI. I’ve also co-authored a game theory paper on ranked-choice voting with Professor Avidit Acharya (pending publication), worked on macroeconomic theory with Dr. Kinda Hachem at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, helped build benefits delivery systems at Propel, assisted with research projects on econometric theory and state debt structures, and conducted policy work at the US Treasury, End Poverty in California, the office of U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, and the Millennium Challenge Corporation. I’ve taken graduate-level coursework in microeconomics, machine learning, market design, labor economics, economic history, natural language processing, econometrics, graph neural networks, Markov decision processes, causal inference, and optimization.

In my free time, you can catch me reading (Substack, long-form journalism, short stories, historical fiction), climbing mountains (mountaineering, backpacking, climbing, hiking, you name it!), or traveling. I love meeting new people – feel free to reach out at kwahal@stanford.edu!