Laura Wedemeyer is a PhD candidate at the Chair of Development Economics and Global Political Economy at the University of Göttingen, supervised by Prof. Dr. Andreas Fuchs. Her research uses geocoded data to study the determinants and effects of foreign aid and foreign direct investment, with a focus on German development finance and the political economy of financial flows to and from the Arab world.

Laura holds a Master’s degree in Development Economics and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Economics from the University of Göttingen, including a semester abroad at Peking University. During her doctoral studies, she has been a visiting researcher at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia (2026), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (2024), and AidData at William & Mary (2023). She has also taught at Stellenbosch University (2025) and Fudan University (2024).