Associate

nitisha_jaiswal@isb.edu

Nitisha is an experienced Project Associate with a demonstrated history of working organizations like Apple and Google. She has worked in different domains with skill sets spanning, General Management, Project Management, Customer Service and Microsoft Office. She has a degree in Aviation and Hospitality Industry. 

Research Assocaite

abhijeet_parmar@isb.edu

Abhijeet is an earth observation expert specializing in geospatial analytics and hazard models. The scope of his work ranges from learning representation, geoscience, computational neuroscience to social sciences. He has over seven years of experience comprising of teaching and research in higher education setup with interdisciplinary outlook. His academic and professional affiliations include Faculty of Geoinformation Sciences and Earth Observation, Netherlands and University of Delhi. He is an active contributor to open source initiative and self-taught ignorant physicist. 

Research Associate

akanksha_naygandhi@isb.edu

kanksha is a research associate working with Prof Ashwini Chhatre on projects related to development initiatives in rural India. A detailed study was conducted on how Business Correspondents facilitate financial transactions using the AEPS (Aadhar Enabled Payment System) technology in remote villages. She is also working on the Indian Food System for Improved Nutrition (INFUSION) Project, to study how can intake of nutritious foods become more accessible and affordable to the most vulnerable communities.

She has done her B.Sc. in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and her M.A. in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has worked for 5 years at corporate like Infosys and HSBC as a data analyst. Her past experience of exploratory data analysis and building machine learning models comes in handy when dealing with anything related to data.

She loves to trek and do all sort of adventure activities.

 

Project Specialist

apurva_d@isb.edu

Apurva holds a Masters degree in Natural Resources and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and has been associated with ISB as a Research Associate (RA) since the last one year. She has been actively working on Forest related datasets and currently is a part of the Forest Governance team. She has played an instrumental role in- Setting up of Socio-Ecological Monitoring System, Project Monitoring System and CFR.

Consultant

ashwina_mahani@isb.edu

Ashwina Mahanti is a Project Specialist for “Indian Food Systems for Improved Nutrition” (INFUSION); a collaborative project between BIPP and the University of Sheffield. She holds a Masters in Environmental Studies from TERI, and a Masters in Environmental Policy from the University of Michigan. Her research interests include the governance of complex social-ecological systems, food systems’ governance, and adaptation to climate change. She has conducted research for drafting State Action Plans on Climate Change for Andaman and Nicobar Islands and effective water sector adaptations for the sixth assessment report of the IPCC. She also has research experience in the governance of telecoupled food systems and used the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil as a case study to analyze multi-stakeholder initiatives as models for sustainability governance.

Project Specialist

Avijit_Chatterjee@isb.edu

Avijit a graduate in Commerce from Kolkata University, spent almost a decade organizing marginal communities around their right to land immediately after college having got involved in such social causes during his college days. Thereafter he was involved in documentary film making for a few years before moving onto the world of IT and  worked with Hewlett Packard for a few years. Moved onto the emergent BPO industry and worked as Process & Communication trainer with Barclays Bank international call center in Mumbai, post which he came back to his first love- working with communities and  has , since the last almost decade and half been working with forest dependent communities facilitating rights recognition process across several states and now  has joined the Initiative on Forest Economy at the BIPP as  Project Coordinator.

Research Associate

devanshi_singh@isb.edu

Devanshi is an experienced research scholar, currently working as a Research Associate at Bharti Institute of Public Policy, ISB Hyderabad under the SLU grant. She is working on the project titled ‘Institutional Networks and Self-Adaption’ under the supervision of Prof. Ashwini Chhatre, Prof. Harry Fischer and Dr. Divya Gupta.

With a bachelor’s in Economics from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, and master’s in Development Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Devanshi has worked previously with Swaniti Initiative and Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion at IFMR. Skilled in Qualitative and Quantitative research methods, and statistical data analysis, Devanshi is passionate about development economics and public policy research.

Research Associate

ewannikhil_thomas@isb.edu

Ewan Nikhil Thomas has two years of research experience and is interested in Market Designs, Public Policy, Development Economics, and Energy Economics. Ewan holds a Master’s degree in Economics from University of Hyderabad. He is currently engaged in the Food Systems (INFUSION) project and India Data Portal. Prior to ISB, he worked as a research associate at University of Hyderabad.

Cluster Coordinator

jayanti_buruda@isb.edu

Jayanti Buruda is Master in Journalism and mass communication from Central University Koraput, Odisha in 2014.She has spent a major part of her life as first tribal women TV journalist from Malkangiri and continuing as freelancer. She focused on stories from rural tribal landscapes on livelihood, health and social justice. She started working on the political economy of the forest to reclaim tribal justice and economic security, and therefore she joined as Cluster coordinator in ISB to lead several roles in Malkangiri and across several districts in Odisha.  

Project Specialist

ravindra_sudamchunarkar@isb.edu

Ravindra has completed his Graduation from Government Collage of Engineering, In Instrumentation. He is a part of ‘NIRMAN’; youth for purposeful life, held by ‘SEARCH’ organization, Gadchiroli. He has about Five Years of Experience in development sector. Initially he got ‘Kar Ke Dekho’ fellowship from ‘NIRMAN’ and started working in Palghar District, with ‘VAYAM’ organisation, work was based on grooming ground leaders, implementation of PESA, FRA, MGNAREGA and other rights. He has also worked with Government of Maharashtra as a Chief Minister Rural Development Fellow at MVSTF, in the Domain of convergence of government scheme and acted as a catalyst between the administration and people. His working village won the ‘Smart Village’ award. He also worked with ‘AAA’ organisation for strengthening Gramsabha’s in Korchi. He has worked on Forest Governance Project of TISS as Research Officer. He has also implemented the research study on Mendha, India’s First CFR recognition village, about their Pre and Post analysis of FRA. 

Research Coordinator

sanjoy_mondal@isb.edu

Sanjoy completed his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Burdwan in 2009. Post completion he worked as an intern for the RRAN project. Currently, he is working as a Research Coordinator in the Forest Governance team. His job involves traveling to Madhya Pradesh (Dewas and Khandwa), Odisha(Malkangiri), West Bengal (Bankura), Maharashtra(Nashik), and Jharkhand (Chattarpur) for various data collection activities and GIS mapping of forest area. He has developed polygon of more than 130 forests across states and created a land-use map of 20 villages of West Bengal.

Research Associate

shreya_jain@isb.edu

Shreya has 4 years of experience in the business world in domains such as marketing, strategy, technology, and Innovation. Her expertise spans across business unit process optimization, organization set-up, business plan, corporate strategy, digital transformation, business launch and expansion etc. At BIPP, She is working in Forest Governance team.

Shreya has completed E-MDP from IIM Kozhikode, MBA from IBS Hyderabad, and Bachelors in Arts (English) from St. Xavier's College. In addition to being an academic rank holder and SIP Award Winner (Toyota), She is a National Award Winner for designing marketing strategy for a project of Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan. Before Joining ISB, Shreya has worked in Amazon and Zomato. Shreya had her own start-up venture of business consulting which provided solutions to existing business problems. She enjoys exploring new places and trying new cuisines.

Sr Research Associate

soumya_banerjee@isb.edu

Soumya is a Senior Research Associate at Prof. Ashwini Chhatre's Forest Economy Initiative. 7 years have passed since Soumya started working as a researcher and documentarian. He holds an M.Phil. in Social Science Research from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He has worked as a policy researcher for the state governments of West Bengal and Odisha, as well as with organisations like Landesa-RDI, NABARD, and Grant Thorton-Bharat. Soumya has a background in organising, carrying out, and overseeing qualitative and mixed-method research and evaluation projects pertaining to Governmental policies and Welfare Schemes. He was a member of the research team that did drafting of state action plans for Odisha's "Innovative Agro-forestry for Food and Nutrition Security". He has a strong interest in ‘ethnobotany of indigenous crops’ and ‘land policies for growth and climate change.’ He is a member of the research planning and ethics committee at the Government of Odisha's ‘Center of Excellence for Result-based Management and Good Governance’. His research publications include chapters in the training manual of Policy administrations for OAS & IAS, articles in rural development published in News reach magazine of PRADAN, and publications in peer-reviewed academic journals in the area of land policy.

Sr Research Fellow

surya_kandukuri@isb.edu

Surya Kandukuri is an engineer coupled with 7+ years of experience as a Data Consultant and Project Lead in the realm of Databases, Data Mining, Data Acquisition – scraping, APIs and Web Services, Data Visualization, Data Journalism, Statistical Modelling, Open Data, Government Partnerships and Relations. His key areas of work include implementation of Open Data Policy of IT E&C Department, Government of Telangana since its inception, various partnerships with government/quasi-government organizations, and private organizations. He is also an alumnus of ISB’s Advanced Management Program in Business Analytics (AMPBA). His research interests lie in Agriculture, Employment, History. He enjoys philosophy, photography, art, and music.

Corporate Engagement Specialist

sushma_kattamuri@isb.edu

Sushma is a part of the Forest Governance team at BIPP for establishing market linkages. Her work involves identifying industry/corporate requirements and opportunities and integrating with local/community-led enterprises for the forest based industrial raw material; thereby making forest communities an integral part of the industry value chains.

She holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi and has completed the Advanced Management Programme in Public Policy at ISB. Her experience, prior to this role, has been in the private sector; across FMCG, Mutual Funds and Telecom sectors in product & project management, strategy and business operations’ roles; she co-owned, built & managed her startup, a portal that helped its users invest their money in Mutual Funds most suited to them.

Her desire to do good work in the social impact sector is what brings her to her current role at ISB.

Project Specialist

sandip_chowdhury@isb.edu

Sandip is a Project Specialist for the Forest Economy Initiative led by Prof. Ashwini Chhatre. Sandip is passionate about forestry and climate change and has over six years of cross-functional experience in the areas of landscape restoration, forest-based livelihoods, community forest management, energy access, and climate justice. He has an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Forest Management Bhopal and has worked in the capacity of both a researcher and a practitioner with internationally renowned non-profits like the environmental think tank World Resources Institute and global charity Oxfam. In his free time, Sandip likes to pen articles and blogs on environmental topics that are regularly published in the print media. He is a volunteer presenter with The Climate Reality Project and tries to raise awareness around climate change to the environmentally uninitiated.  Besides work, he likes to travel to new places and watch documentaries.

Content Writer

yamini_1@isb.edu

Yamini holds a Master's degree in Social Work with a specialization in Women-centered practice from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a Bachelor's in Home Science with Development Communication and Extensions from Delhi University. She has worked with the Indian Political Action Committee as a Field Campaign Associate for West Bengal Assembly elections 2021 followed by a research fellowship with BIPP-ISB and Collectives for Integrated Livelihoods, Tata Trusts.