Paulius Yamin

Paulius is a non-resident Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation Policy Fellow for the 2025-2026 academic year, where he is exploring how market actors, civil society organizations, and the public sector coordinate transitions toward more sustainable practices in different countries.

He also serves as Scientific Director of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study, an association of 14 major research and higher education institutions in Paris that hosts over 80 prominent international scholars and leaders each year. In this role, he is co-investigator of the Socioscope, a major research project compiling 600 in-depth case studies of sustainability initiatives globally and co-coordinates the Social Progress and Behavior Change Working Group of the International Panel for Social Progress.

Born and raised in Colombia with Lithuanian roots, Paulius has over a decade of experience working with public institutions, international development agencies, and research organizations in Colombia, the US, France, the UK, and Lithuania. His roles have included Managing Director of the Center for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics at the University of Pennsylvania (USA), founder and inaugural head of the Cultural Change Team at Colombia’s Administrative Department for Public Function (the first behavioral team in Colombian government), and research assistant to former Bogotá mayor Antanas Mockus.

Paulius also works as an external consultant on behavioral science, social norm change, and institutional development for organizations such as the International Labour Organisation, the World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the Council of Europe, USAID, among others (through the Behavioural Lab). His consulting projects span diverse policy challenges, including discrimination, violence and harassment, civic engagement, decent work, public integrity, access to justice and reparations, and administrative reform, in countries like Colombia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Paulius holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at the London School of Economics (UK), where he has been a Visiting Fellow since 2020.