Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University

Garth Wiens

Research Assistant, Economics

Garth Wiens is a member of the Policy Design Initiative. He is a research assistant working on field experiments in public and health care economics, employing the insights of behavioral science and psychology to tailor programs or policies to people’s actual, rather than idealized, decision-making processes.

Born in Canada and raised in St. Louis, Garth holds an A.B. from Harvard in biochemical sciences and did graduate study work in biology at M.I.T. He has performed and published research with cardiology, immunology, and cell and molecular biology laboratories at St. Louis University Medical School, Harvard Medical School, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Whitehead Institute, and M.I.T.

Outside of work Garth enjoys ultimate Frisbee, tennis, biking, and hiking; regularly extracts deeply hidden pop-culture nuggets from his brain at pub trivia; loves practically all manner of card games, from euchre to bridge to poker; and sings tenor in the classical music choral group Chorus pro Musica, with which he has performed at Boston Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall, among other venues.