recent

Bailyn Coauthors New Book on Retirement

Castilla Named Chair of the Academy of Management’s Organization and Management Theory Division

Thomas Kochan: "Vote yes to let workers in the rideshare sector unionize"

IWER

Palak Shah Named IWER Senior Fellow

Palak Shah

Palak Shah has been named a Senior Fellow of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research (IWER) at the MIT Sloan School of Management for the academic year 2024-2025.

Shah is an accomplished social innovator, a leader in workers’ rights for the new economy, and an expert on the future of work, low-wage workers, and care infrastructure. From 2013 to 2024, Shah served in executive roles at the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), where she was instrumental in shaping the organization’s strategic vision and institutionalizing a culture of experimentation, social entrepreneurship, and data-driven approaches to improve work for the nation's 2.5 million low-wage domestic workers. In 2015, she founded NDWA Labs, NDWA’s innovation lab focused on the future of care work.

As Executive Director of NDWA Labs, Shah led innovative initiatives, including the creation of Alia, an online portable benefits platform for domestic workers, and the development of the La Alianza chatbot, which engages over 230,000 Spanish-speaking workers and produces a large dataset on informal workers. During the pandemic, NDWA Labs partnered with Google.org to develop software that distributed $30 million in pandemic relief to unbanked domestic workers left out of federal relief. This open-source software project then enabled mayors, cities, and states to establish local relief funds.

Shah has been featured at high-profile forums, including events at the Federal Reserve, the Aspen Institute, MIT Solve, TEDx, and Harvard University. Her work has been covered by Stanford Social Innovation Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Fast Company, MIT Technology Review and other publications.

Palak’s career spans the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. Prior to NDWA, she led the strategic implementation of the Affordable Care Act at Wellmont Health System and served as Deputy Director of Performance Management for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She also worked as a management consultant and as a community organizer, and she co-founded a public health nonprofit.

Shah holds a dual degree in Political Science and Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University and a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. She currently serves as an advisor to WorkRise/Urban Institute, the Fund for New Leadership, and the Home Care Cooperative Initiative.

Some coverage about Shah and her work in recent years: