Tomoto Masuda

Researcher | PGR in Economics | AI Developer

I am a PhD candidate in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. My work brings together applied microeconomics, reproducible data analysis, and AI-enabled research tools. I am interested in using large language models, structured data pipelines, and computational methods to support rigorous research, transparent analysis, and evidence-based decision-making.

My research focuses on applied microeconomics, labour economics, development policy, and impact evaluation. I use administrative and survey microdata and apply causal-inference methods, including Difference-in-Differences, event studies, instrumental variables, fixed-effects models, and panel-data analysis.

Research and Teaching

At the University of Sussex, I teach and support undergraduate economics teaching while conducting doctoral research. I develop clear learning materials and communicate economic theory, empirical evidence, and quantitative methods to students and non-specialist audiences.

My research practice is grounded in reproducibility. I build documented workflows in Python, R, Stata, and SQL for data construction, cleaning, analysis, and reporting. I have worked with large UK administrative and survey datasets in secure research settings, including education, labour-market, benefit, earnings, and household-survey data.

I am an Accredited Researcher with the UK Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service. My work in secure research environments follows the relevant requirements for ethical data handling, disclosure control, and reproducible analytical practice.

AI, Data Systems, and Open-Source Development

Alongside my academic work, I am an AI developer who designs research-support tools and data applications. My technical interests include large language model integration, structured prompting, typed outputs, API-based workflows, data engineering, web development, and reproducible computational research.

I build applications with Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Node.js, HTML, CSS, and related web technologies. My open-source projects include tools for generating structured research ideas, summarising academic papers, curating AI news, building AI-assisted data dashboards, and providing transcription, translation, and summarisation workflows.

I use Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, and related tools as part of a practical approach to AI-assisted research. My emphasis is on careful task design, verification of outputs, transparent documentation, and researcher judgement.

Policy Research and Professional Experience

My research and consultancy experience includes policy-oriented work on employment, labour markets, and development. I have analysed survey microdata for a Tanzania jobs diagnostic developed with ODI and FCDO, contributed to development-policy research with UNDP in Timor-Leste, and supported JICA-funded rural technology projects in Kenya.

Before beginning my doctorate, I spent 13 years in international corporate strategy, business planning, and data-analysis roles at Sharp Electronics. I developed forecasting tools, automated reporting workflows, data pipelines, and decision-support dashboards for multi-country business operations. This experience informs my research approach: rigorous analysis should be technically sound, well documented, and useful to the people making decisions.

Research Interests

My work spans applied economics and computational research practice, with particular interests in:

•Applied microeconomics, labour economics, and development policy;

•Causal inference and impact evaluation;

•Administrative data, survey data, and reproducible research workflows;

•AI-assisted research tools, large language models, and data systems; and

•Research communication, technical training, and evidence synthesis.

Contact and Links

For academic or research-related enquiries, please contact me at t.masuda@sussex.ac.uk. My public software projects are available at github.com/tomoto0.