About me - I am a first-generation university graduate from India currently pursuing the Master in Public Policy (MPP) program at Harvard University as a fully-funded Kennedy fellow. Prior to joining HKS, I have worked in policy, research, and development in India for 4+ years with organizations like J-PAL South Asia and EPoD India. I have engaged with global experts and Nobel laureates to design research studies, draft policy reports, and present insights from data analysis to aid international development efforts. I have also led scoping, program implementation, monitoring, and impact evaluation across multiple projects. Conducting personal interviews and focused group discussions (FGDs); managing data collection, cleaning, and analysis; and liaising with senior stakeholders and bureaucrats to support randomized control trials (RCTs) has helped me build extensive empirical research expertise in education, gender, labor, and health policy areas.
My motivation for the internship - My work experiences, academic training in Statistics, and lived experiences from a developing country like India have instilled a deep-seated interest to work on gender policy issues. As a woman of color and a first-generation university graduate from a migrant family, I recognize the need for data-driven and impact-oriented problem solving and decision making to achieve gender parity. Based on my experiences, I believe that access to quality education, skilling, non-traditional work opportunities, financial independence, and asset ownership are means to bridge the gender gaps in developing economies. Accordingly, this summer, I engaged with the Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL) at The World Bank as a Data Intern, supporting gender related impact evaluations in the Africa region.
A detailed description of the Bank, the Africa GIL, and my responsibilities as an intern is included in the next blog! Read on to learn more…
