Economist & Data Scientist

Carlos Ignacio
Navarro

Quantifying the hard to measure.

Applied Economics Causal Inference Python · SQL · Stata Tableau Policy Analysis Index Construction Bilingual EN/ES
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Background

About Me

I grew up on the Texas–Mexico border, in the Rio Grande Valley. That meant growing up bilingual, bicultural, and fluent in navigating between worlds. It left me with an instinct for who the data affects and where people actually live, and that has shaped every research project I've touched since.

My career traces a deliberate arc from the border outward. I started in cross-border logistics at TRANCASA, then interned with the Economic Policy Institute in Silicon Valley, studying post-recession recovery for low-income families. At the Bush School I received the U.S. Congress–George H.W. Bush Fellowship and delivered a comparative security analysis to U.S. Southern Command. That researcher identity deepened at PERC (Texas A&M), where I built economic indices, co-authored a peer-reviewed study on Medicaid and recidivism, and directed a COVID-19 business impact survey. At Texas 2036 I translated complex data into legislative recommendations on workforce and criminal justice. Since January 2025 I've served as Data Scientist at the Texas Space Commission, building economic indicators for the commercial space sector.

The combination I work from is rigorous econometric training, production-grade data science (Python, SQL, Stata, ML), and a decade of translating ambiguous, high-stakes problems into decisions that moved policy. I work across sectors, communicate fluently to both technical and executive audiences, and carry a bilingual, international perspective into everything I do. The problems that hold my attention are the ones where measurement is hard, the stakes are real, and a decision has to be made anyway.

Carlos Ignacio Navarro
Education
Master of International Affairs
Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
U.S. Congress–George H.W. Bush Fellowship recipient
Education
BA in Economics
University of Texas Pan American
Location
Austin, Texas
Raised on the Texas–Mexico border
Languages
English (native) · Spanish (native) · Japanese (beginner)

Career

Experience

January 2025 – Present
Data Scientist
Texas Space Commission · Austin, TX
  • Built the Commission's public awards dashboard for the Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, mapping every funded project statewide by recipient type with award-count and award-amount breakdowns, and filters by Texas Senate, Texas House and US House district so a member can find the projects funded in their own.
  • Engineered a workforce index tracking employment and wage dynamics in the commercial space sector, applying industry classification design, imputation of suppressed data under federal disclosure constraints, and time-series construction across a NAICS classification revision to separate the sector methodologically from legacy aerospace and aviation activity.
  • Authored the Commission's first Survey Data Collection Policy, reconciling state information-security and accessibility law (TAC 202, TAC 213), cloud procurement requirements (TX-RAMP), the Texas Public Information Act, and federal research-ethics standards (45 CFR 46); became the agency's internal authority on informed consent and sensitive personal information classification.
  • Replaced a manual, error-prone Board grant-evaluation process with an automated, auditable data pipeline: deduplication logic, conflict-of-interest exclusion rules, and inter-rater dispersion metrics, producing the standing statistical reporting used by leadership during Board grant-evaluation rounds.
  • Built a patent-network model in Python and Stata mapping inventor relationships across the Texas space industry, and served as quantitative lead on supply-chain analysis informing state-level advanced-manufacturing investment strategy.
August 2022 – January 2025
Data Analyst, Strategic Initiatives
Texas 2036 · Austin, TX
  • Owned five metric domains (Education, Workforce, Energy, Economics, Civic Participation) on the Strategic Framework, a public-facing dashboard platform; coordinated external vendors (Knoema, January Advisors) and was accountable for pipeline reliability and the accuracy of every published figure.
  • Produced the analysis behind legislative testimony delivered by the organization's registered lobbyist, a recurring role across the portfolio. Named example: the workforce and establishment data supporting House Bill 3447, which created the Texas Space Commission.
  • Built, end to end, a self-serve simulator of the community college finance formula created by House Bill 8: a Tableau tool of interconnected formulas that let the policy team and other non-technical stakeholders see how the new formula would affect specific named colleges.
  • Co-authored Opening Doors: The State of Higher Education in Texas Prisons (Texas 2036, 2024) with Luis Soberon, a report on postsecondary education access in Texas correctional facilities that informed statewide reform proposals.
  • Built matched cohorts of grade-level schools using K-means clustering to evaluate the impact of a four-day school week, and separately reviewed colleagues' draft publications, checking that the inferences they drew from the data held before release.
March 2018 – April 2022
Senior Research Associate
Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University · College Station, TX
  • Co-authored "The Effect of Public Health Insurance on Criminal Recidivism," published in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (2021), using difference-in-differences on Medicaid expansion variation and individual-level NCRP prisoner data to establish causal reductions in violent and public-order recidivism; led the restricted-data acquisition and IRB approval process.
  • Used two-stage least squares (instrumental variables) to estimate the causal effect of pandemic-era schooling disruptions on academic performance and enrollment.
  • Designed and launched a monthly economic index for the College Station-Bryan MSA, engineering a sales-tax-collection proxy for regional retail activity where no direct data existed, then owned it as a recurring public release for four years, including a pandemic-era methodology revision, versioned and documented so it stayed comparable across periods. Still published and widely cited.
  • Co-developed a composite Misery Index combining economic and public-health metrics to assess pandemic response across jurisdictions, published in the Seidman Business Review.
  • Directed the COVID-19 Business Impact Survey, executing rapid data collection, cleaning, and analysis under crisis timelines to provide situational awareness to municipal leaders during the pandemic.
October 2015 – May 2017
Language Group Leader
Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University · College Station, TX
  • Led professional Spanish instruction for graduate policy students, achieving a 100% passing rate on proficiency assessments.
  • Designed conversation, lecture and discussion sessions targeting syntax, vocabulary and the professional register used in policy and diplomatic settings.
2016
Transfer Pricing Intern
Texas A&M University School of Law · Fort Worth, TX
  • Analyzed the EU Commission's challenge to the Netherlands–Starbucks Advanced Pricing Agreement using the Transactional Net Margin Method and Orbis / Bureau van Dijk financial data.
  • Co-authored "The Value Chain: A Study of the Coffee Industry," a chapter in A Practical Guide to US Transfer Pricing (LexisNexis), with William Byrnes and Nima Khodakarami.
January 2014 – July 2015
Research Associate
Center for Survey Research, University of Texas–Pan American · Edinburg, TX
  • Supported faculty research end to end: instrument design and translation, data collection, and the compilation and interpretation of results.
  • Ran quantitative analysis, focus groups, interviews and phone surveys; managed and analyzed data in SPSS and Qualtrics and built the underlying databases.
  • Introduced a cloud-based document-sharing workflow that cut materials cost and turnaround time during field collection.
2013
Research Intern (EARN Fellow)
Working Partnerships USA / Economic Policy Institute · San Jose, CA
  • Collected and analyzed economic indicators for the Life in the Valley Economy biannual report, investigating post-recession recovery for low- and middle-income families in Silicon Valley.
  • Gave public testimony at a San Jose city hall meeting on regional housing conditions; findings contributed to the Economic Prosperity Strategy, prescribing industry-driven vocational training to match employer demand.
Pre-2013
Operations Assistant
TRANCASA (Transportes Canales SA de CV) · Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas, Mexico
  • Developed the company's first Import-Export Procedures manual, documenting the end-to-end cross-border shipment process from client intake to driver return.
  • Served on the internal C-TPAT (Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) board, managing annual certification renewals; maintained logistics inventory and traffic data using SICET.

Toolkit

Skills

Languages & Query
Python SQL Stata MATLAB R Gretl
AI & Emerging Tools
LLM Integration AI-Assisted Research Claude API
ML & Econometrics
Scikit-Learn Pandas K-Means Clustering Causal Inference Diff-in-Diff Regression Analysis Forecasting Dynamic Factor Models
Data & Visualization
Tableau Cloud Power BI MS Excel DataFerrett Orbis / Bureau van Dijk SICET
Governance & Compliance
IRB & Research Ethics Data Privacy (PII/SPI) TX-RAMP TAC 202 Common Rule (45 CFR 46) Policy Drafting
Domain Expertise
Labor Economics Criminal Justice Economics Space Economy Transfer Pricing Development Economics Public Policy Analysis Game Theory
Communication & Leadership
Bilingual (EN/ES) Technical Writing Stakeholder Management Legislative Testimony Cross-functional Collaboration Executive Advisory

At a glance

The Story in Data

Carlos Ignacio Navarro
Research economist · Data scientist · Policy analyst
The story in data
Career journey
Rio Bravo, MX
2010
Origin · logistics & trade ops
Edinburg, TX
2009–2015
UTPA · BA Econ 2013 · Center for Survey Research
San Jose, CA
2013
EPI · Silicon Valley policy research
College Station, TX
2015–2022
Bush School MIA · Fellowship · PERC
Austin, TX
2022–now
Texas 2036 · Space Commission
By the numbers
10+
years of research experience
40+
publications, reports & studies
3
economic indices built from scratch
JPAM
peer-reviewed publication
100%
Spanish proficiency pass rate among students taught
6
professional certifications
Domains & certifications
Applied economics Public policy Data science Agentic AI research Causal inference Legislative analysis Data governance International affairs
Certifications
Space Policy AI & ML · UT McCombs Python Foundations UX Research Problem Solving Agentic AI Foundations: Business Risks and Applications · Harvard Online
U.S. Congress–George H.W. Bush Fellowship recipient
EN ES JA

Scholarship

Publications

Independent Research · New
More service jobs, less technical AI use: a subnational look
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · August 2026 · Read on this site →
Pairs Anthropic's Economic Index with OECD regional employment statistics across 279 regions in 35 countries. Within countries, regions with more service employment show a lower share of AI usage going to technical work, reversing the intuitive mapping from industry mix to technical AI use. Survives country fixed effects, 35 leave-one-country-out refits, a wild cluster bootstrap, an independent replication in Stata, and a second usage measure built from a different classification scheme.
Interactive Dashboard
Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund: Awards Map
Texas Space Commission · 2026
Public dashboard mapping every project awarded under the Space Exploration and Aeronautics Research Fund, which the Texas Legislature established in 2023 with a $150 million appropriation, now fully committed. Plots awards statewide by recipient type (business, non-profit, government entity, higher education) with award-count and award-amount breakdowns, and filters by Texas Senate, Texas House and US House district so a member can find the projects funded in their own.
Peer-Reviewed
The Effect of Public Health Insurance on Criminal Recidivism
Erkmen G. Aslim, Murat C. Mungan, Carlos I. Navarro, Han Yu · Journal of Policy Analysis and Management · 2021
Exploits variation in state Medicaid expansion decisions, together with individual-level National Corrections Reporting Program data, to establish that access to public health insurance causally reduces recidivism among offenders convicted of violent and public-order crimes, driven by increased criminal-justice referrals to addiction treatment.
Op-Ed
How the Affordable Care Act Can Keep People Out of Prison
Erkmen G. Aslim, Carlos Ignacio Navarro, Han Yu · The Conversation · February 2021
Translates the peer-reviewed recidivism findings for a general audience, explaining how Medicaid expansion increases criminal-justice referrals to addiction treatment and reduces violent reoffending. Republished under Creative Commons by Next City, Yahoo News, Michigan Advance, Medical Xpress and Giving Compass.
Book Chapter
The Value Chain: A Study of the Coffee Industry
William H. Byrnes, Nima Khodakarami, Carlos Navarro Perez · A Practical Guide to US Transfer Pricing, LexisNexis
A transfer pricing case study applying the Transactional Net Margin Method to a hypothetical specialty coffee roaster in Europe, tracing the full supply and value chain from cultivation to consumer and identifying comparable parties using Orbis financial data.
Policy Report
Opening Doors: The State of Higher Education in Texas Prisons
Luis Soberon & Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · November 2024
Reviews the literature on postsecondary education access in Texas correctional facilities, finding that prison college programs are associated with reduced recidivism and lower long-run correctional costs; recommends governance reforms, expanded community college access, and integrated data systems to scale higher education across TDCJ facilities.
Working Paper
Methodology for Constructing an Economic Index for the College Station-Bryan MSA
Dennis W. Jansen, Carlos I. Navarro, Andrew J. Rettenmaier, Tatevik Sekhposyan · Private Enterprise Research Center, Texas A&M University · October 2018
Presents the dynamic factor model methodology and data sources used to build a monthly coincident business-cycle index for the College Station-Bryan metropolitan area, using sales-tax collections as a proxy for retail activity when official monthly GDP data is unavailable.
Policy Report
Pandemic Misery Index: Economic and Health Implications of COVID-19
Erkmen G. Aslim & Carlos I. Navarro · Seidman Business Review, Vol. 27, Issue 1 · Winter 2021
Adapts the Pandemic Misery Index, which combines unemployment rates with COVID-19 deaths per 10,000, to Michigan MSAs, finding wide regional variation (PMI range: 11.82–26.09) and identifying policy effectiveness in managing simultaneous economic and public health burdens.
Blog Post
Aerospace Employment Remains on Ascent Post Pandemic
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · August 2023
Documents Texas aerospace industry employment reaching an all-time high of 154,918 jobs by end of 2022, with Texans holding roughly one in ten space industry jobs nationwide as the sector recovers and the Legislature commits $350M to the new Texas Space Commission.
Blog Post
Data: Texas Draws Richer Individuals from Other States
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · September 2023
Uses IRS address-change data across Commuting Zones to show that out-of-state movers to Texas have higher average incomes than within-state movers, with the largest flows suggesting Texas is an especially attractive destination for wealthy households.
Blog Post
Teacher Wages and Projected Growth: What to Know
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · April 2023
Draws on Texas Workforce Commission occupational projections to show that four of the ten fastest-growing bachelor's-degree occupations in Texas are in teaching, yet all four rank among the lowest-paid in that same cohort.
Blog Post
Jobs and Wages: Projections from Now Until 2030
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · February 2023
Examines TWC projections showing 18.3% Texas employment growth through 2030, more than double the national rate, while highlighting a persistent $4,000 average wage gap relative to the US and a decade-long concentration of growth in low-wage jobs.
Blog Post
TX's Labor Market and the Price of Recovery: Strategic Framework
Carlos Ignacio Navarro · Texas 2036 · December 2022
Analyzes the tightest Texas labor market in a decade, with unemployment falling from a 12.6% pandemic peak to 4% by September 2022, examining the economic cost of recovery and the structural dynamics behind persistently more job openings than unemployed workers.

This is a selection. The complete record is held by Texas A&M's OAKTrust repository and the Texas 2036 author archive, with citations tracked on Google Scholar.

Get in Touch

Contact

Always glad to hear from people working on hard measurement problems in economics, policy or data science. Questions about the research, possible collaborations, or anything else: my inbox is open.

ci.navarrop@gmail.com LinkedIn
Download Resume (PDF)