Sommarat Chantarat is a faculty member at the Ardnt-Corden Department of Economics, Crawford School of Economics and Government, the Australian National University. Her research interests span poverty traps, vulnerability and rural welfare dynamics; risk management mechanisms in poor communities; rural financial markets, microinsurance and microcredit; field experiments in development economics; and policy impact evaluation. Her current work involves the use of risk modeling and original field survey and experiments in tackling development of pro-poor risk management and credit instruments as a means to reduce poverty and vulnerability among poor communities. Chantarat received her Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University.