Firman Witoelar joined the Indonesia Project, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, in November 2018. Previously he was the research director of SurveyMeter, a research organization based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia (2013-2108) and a research economist at the development economics research group (DECRG) at the World Bank, Washington, DC (2009-2013). He holds a PhD in Economics from the Michigan State University and was a Rockefeller Postdoctoral Fellow at the Economic Growth Center, Yale University.

Since 2000, Firman has been involved with the development and implementation of Indonesia Family Life Survey including as one of the Co-Principal Investigators of IFLS4 (2007) and IFLS5 (2014).

Firman is an affiliated professor of Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a faculty affiliate at the CPC Learning Network, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. He is currently the Lead Editor of the Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies.