Yael Borofsky is a PhD candidate at ETH Zurich, where her interdisciplinary doctoral work is focused on subsidy targeting and public infrastructure in informal settlements, particularly in Cape Town, South Africa. Yael completed a dual master's degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning ('15) and in the Technology and Policy Program ('15), where she was a fellow in MIT's Tata Center for Technology and Design and the co-founder of e4Dev, an MIT Energy Initiative-sponsored discussion forum exploring issues at the intersection of energy and human development.

Previously, Yael worked as a researcher and instructor at the MIT Energy Initiative, a research assistant at the ETH Zurich NADEL Center for Development and Cooperation, a reporter at Technical.ly, and a Project Director and Associate Editor of the Breakthrough Journal. She received her bachelor of science in Human Development from Cornell University.