Allison Zelkowitz

Allison Zelkowitz is the Founder and Director of the Center for Utilizing Behavioral Insights for Children (CUBIC), launched by Save the Children International in April 2020. CUBIC is the world’s first applied behavioral science team focused on the rights and welfare of the most marginalized children. The center has led projects across Asia, Africa, North America, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America, applying behavioral science to reduce hazardous child labor, build parenting skills to strengthen child development, and enhance behavioral science capacity among local, national, and international organizations.

Allison has worked in international aid and development for over 19 years. She began her career in Indonesia supporting Aceh’s tsunami recovery response and later launched Save the Children’s largest-ever humanitarian operation during the 2010 floods in Pakistan. She then served for four years as Country Director in Thailand and three years as Country Director in Lebanon.

She holds a Master’s degree in Pacific and International Affairs from the University of California, San Diego, where she specialized in international development, nonprofit management, and Southeast Asia. Allison is fluent in Indonesian and graduated from Bowdoin College with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Theater.

Allison is passionate about behavioral science and continuously deepens her knowledge by authoring more than 200 editions of her weekly behavioral science blog, *In a Nutshell*. She also loves being a mother to her two young children, skydiving, and jogging slowly. She is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.