Research Portfolio

Daniel Chen
Research Funding

Grants, fellowships, and nominations spanning law, economics, artificial intelligence, and judicial reform — across six continents.

$50M+ Total Funding
80+ Grants & Awards
20+ Funders
30yr Career Span

Software & Impact Projects

USAID Development Innovation Ventures
Increasing Access to Justice Through Improved Judicial Efficiency
2024 oTree Halted
$900,000 ⊘
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
oTree: An Open Source Platform for Online, Lab, and Field Experiments
2018 Foundation oTree
$300,000
No. 2018-11245
MacKenzie Scott & Tipping Point — Open Door Legal
Access to justice for low-income individuals
2023 Impact
$1,900,000
$700K + $1.2M
Law Foundation of Ontario
Intake and RCT
2025 Foundation Justice
$500,000

Grants — Principal Investigator

European Research Council — Consolidator
Origins and Effects of Normative Commitments
2014 ERC
$2,200,000
No. 614708
Swiss National Science Foundation
Three concurrent grants across digital humanities, econometrics, and high-performance computing
Expand 3 grants
$1,224,000
2013–2014
Digital Humanities: Legal Analysis in a Big Data World
2014 · No. 106014-157680
$413,000
Positive Foundations of Normative Commitments
2014 · No. 100018-152768
$545,000
High-Performance Computing and Big Data Analytics
2013 · No. 106014-150820
$266,000
World Bank
Fourteen grants on judicial efficiency, AI, NLP, and development across Kenya, Pakistan, India, Croatia, Czech Republic, and Nigeria
Expand 14 grants
~$676,900
2020–2022
Kenya Digital Green
2022
$50,000
Towards an Algorithmic Extraction of Causal Knowledge from the Impact Evaluation Literature
2022
$91,000
Impact Evaluation of Online Hate Speech on Violence in Nigeria
2022
$94,000
Dynamic Point Systems for Judges
2022
$30,000
Adaptive Combinatorial Allocation: The Impact of Technological Innovations on the Productivity and Efficiency of Court-Annexed Mediation
2021
$96,400
Can Natural Language Processing and AI predict the impact of World Bank Projects?
2021
$48,000
How can the Pakistani judiciary be strengthened to reduce violence arising from land disputes?
2021
$28,500
Evolution of Inmates' Perceptions and Preferences Over Time: Evidence from Czech Prisons
2021
$30,000
How can Technology Impact Legal Capacity in Pakistan? Digitize Court Records and Pilot a Legal Case Management App
2021
$30,000
The Impact of Judicial Productivity Quotas on the Quality of Judicial Decisions and Firm Outcomes in Croatia
2021
$30,000
The Impact of Judicial Rulings and Environmental Litigation on Air and Water Pollution and Health Outcomes Related to COVID-19 in India
2021
$30,000
How Do Youths Learn Justice? Piloting an Embedded-EthiCS Digital Literacy Curriculum
2021
$30,000
India Courts and Informality
2020
$34,000
India Justice and COVID
2020
$25,000
Knowledge for Change Trust Fund & Research Support Budget
E-Justice innovations, gender bias in the judiciary, and judicial efficiency
Expand 4 grants
$776,700
2020–2022
The Potential for E-Justice Innovations to Build More Resilient Justice Systems in the Wake of COVID-19
Knowledge for Change Trust Fund · 2022
$200,000
Gender Bias in the Judiciary: How Attitudes Toward Gender Affect Decision-Making in High-Stakes Settings in Peru, Kenya, and India
Research Support Budget · 2021
$198,350
The Causal Effects of Judicial Efficiency on Economic Activity
Research Support Budget · 2020
$198,350
The Impact of Justice Innovations on Poverty, Growth, and Development
Knowledge for Change Trust Fund · 2020
$180,000
ETH Fellowship Program
Postdoctoral Sponsor — High-Dimensional Econometrics Applications in Law and Economics
2014 Fellowship
$223,000
Google Inclusion
Predicting and Remedying Gender and Ethnic Biases in the Kenyan Judiciary through AI
2021 AI & Bias
$60,000
Templeton Foundation
Markets and Morality: Do Free Markets Corrode Moral Values?
2011 Foundation
$200,000
No. 22420

Grants — Co-Principal Investigator

EU-INTPA
Data, AI, and Impact Evaluation
2021 EU
$3,500,000
PI of $934,000
NordAid
Trustworthy AI in Public Decision Making
2025 AI
$1,700,000
EU-Kenya
Green and Digital Development
2022 EU
$1,500,000
3ie
Law and Development
2019 Foundation
$800,000
DFID
Using Administrative Data Systems to Improve Court Efficiency
2019 Intl. Development
$643,000
Law Foundation of Ontario
Intake and RCT (Co-PI)
2025 Foundation
$366,000
Jan Wallanders and Tom Hedelius Foundation
Ideological Extremism or Integration
2018 Foundation
$352,000
FAPESP
Judicial Research — Brazil
2024 Int'l
$300,000
Multiple Institutions
Women in Economics: Is Scientific Writing Gendered?
Gender
$300,000
Microsoft Research
AI & Society
2018 AI
$110,000
J-PAL
Governance Initiative & South Asia India DE JURE Seed
2022–2023 Development
$75,000
$25K + $50K
Hopkins
Understanding Physician Learning and Prescribing Decisions: Micro Evidence from Medicare Part D Claim Data
Health
$25,000
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Justice Innovation Lab — Co-Founder
2020 Impact
Co-Founder

Additional Grants & Fellowships

Interamerican Development Bank
Artificial Intelligence and Judicial Automation: Experimental Evidence from Brazilian Courts
Development
$120,000
International Growth Centre
Four grants on judicial access, environmental justice, tax collection, and Pakistan
Expand 4 grants
$135,700
2020–2023
Just Air? Environmental Jurisprudence, Air Quality and Infant Mortality in India
2023
$35,000
Strengthening Tax Collection through ML-Integrated Technology
2022
$25,000
Judicial Access and Development: Evidence from Pakistan
2020
$50,700
The Causal Effects of Judicial Efficiency on Economic Activity
2020
$25,000
Russell Sage Foundation
Judge and Physician Errors & Lexical Gender Bias in the Judiciary
2019–2020 Foundation
$70,000
2 grants
MacArthur Foundation
University of Pennsylvania Law and Neuroscience Bootcamp & Social Interactions and Inequality Fellowship
2002–2012 Foundation
$10,000

Harvard Law School

Harvard Safra Center for Ethics — Residential Scholar
Declined due to time conflicts
2012–2014 Harvard Declined
$540,000 ⊘
John M. Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics
2006–2009 Harvard
$15,000
Berkman Center for Internet and Society
2009 Harvard
$12,000
Petrie-Flom Fellowship in Health Law Policy
2007–2008 Harvard
$1,500
Summer Academic Fellowships
2007, 2008 Harvard
$13,000

Early Career & Other

NICHD — National Institutes of Health
Postdoctoral Fellowship
2004–2006 NIH
$80,000
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
2000–2004 NSF
$75,000
Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar — Oxford
1999–2000 Fellowship
$30,000
University of Toronto Connaught Fund
2015 University
$42,500
Microsoft Azure Research
2017, 2018 Tech
$40,000
IAST Multidisciplinary Prize
2016 Prize
$45,000
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
2010 Foundation
$20,000
University of Chicago — Expert Witnesses, Bucksbaum
Expert Witnesses (2025) & Incarceration and Dissemination (2020)
2020, 2025 University
$70,000
$50K + $20K
Social Science Research Council & MacArthur
Applied Economics Fellowship & Social Interactions and Inequality Fellowship
2002–2003 Fellowship
$25,000
AmericaReads Community Service Award
Founder, Boston Refugee Youth Enrichment Extension
1999 Service
Award
USA Math Olympiad Qualifier & NSF Supercomputing Competition
Qualifier 1993–1995; Competition Winner 1993; Research Science Institute 1994; Ross Math Program 1992
1992–1995 Competition
Distinctions

Major Nominations & Finalists

ERC Synergy Grant — Lead PI (Recommended for Funding)
AMICUS: Analytical Metrics for Informed Courtroom Understanding & Strategy — A Blueprint for Justice Reform
2024 ERC Recommended
$15,113,000
ERC Synergy Grant — Lead PI (Advanced to 2nd Stage)
AMICUS: Analytical Metrics for Informed Courtroom Understanding & Strategy — A Blueprint for Justice Reform
2025 ERC Finalist
$15,113,000
ERC Synergy Grant — Lead PI
Difference in Indifference: Normative Commitments in Multiculturalist Societies
2018 ERC Stage 2
$14,700,000
ERC Advanced
E-Justice Innovations in the Wake of COVID-19
2021 ERC Stage 2
$4,000,000
NIH Director's Early Independence Award
Duke University nomination
2010 NIH Nominated
$1,250,000
NIH R21
Improving Physician Learning and Decision-Making — Recommended for funding
2020 NIH Recommended
$243,740
Further Nominations & Finalists
USAID, Templeton, ANITI, Data.org, Agency Fund, Greenwall, and more
Expand 10 nominations
Various
Data.org — ThemisChats: Enhancing Legal Search And Discovery With RAG Powered LLMs (Advanced to final stage)
2024
$200,000
Agency Fund — Expanding Legal Agency for Marginalized Entrepreneurs with AI (Advanced to 2nd stage)
2024
$180,000
ANITI Chair (Selected)
2023
$495,000
TIRIS (Advanced to 2nd stage)
2023
$357,000
FID Development Innovation Ventures (Advanced to 2nd stage)
2023
$930,000
Templeton Foundation — Prosperity Through Justice: Reducing Market-Level Constraints to Economic Development Through Rule of Law (Advanced to 2nd stage)
2022
$724,000
Data.org — Data Science for Justice: Evidence from Kenya (Finalist)
2020
$600,000
USAID Development Innovation Ventures (Advanced to 2nd stage)
2021
$900,000
Greenwall Foundation — Faculty Scholars in Bioethics (Duke University nomination)
2010
$270,000
Institute for New Economic Thinking (Invited to 2nd round); Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows (Nominated); Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow (Finalist)
2000–2011
Various