I’ve taken the winding road to realize that my deepest passion is using data to explain and potentially solve socio-economic problems. I grew up in Mumbai, in a stock market-oriented family living in the financial capital of India. As a result, studying business was a requisite. Still, luckily, I was able to combine it alongside my fascination with politics and economics, through the Business and Political Economy (BPE) program at the Stern School of Business, New York University.
Through BPE and NYU Stern, I was able to live, study and work in two of the world’s megacities, New York and London in addition to traversing places such as the European Parliament in Brussels, the Central Bank of Hungary, Hong Kong’s docks and have lunch with Warren Buffett in Omaha. During those four years, I constantly worked while in school either through internships or part-time jobs.
These were in a variety of fields, starting with projects at investment firms in Mumbai, managing the finances of a non-profit fighting domestic abuse in London, being a research assistant to NYU professors on topics such as Shadow Banking and Social Media entrepreneurship, and finally, a teaching fellow for macroeconomics.
In all these experiences inside and outside the classroom, I realized that I perpetually gravitated towards 1. using data to explain a social problem 2. investigating the political and socio-economic nuances of the industry.
As a result, following graduation, I moved back to India, into the thriving policy space, determined to explore my budding passion for applying tech and data to policy/social problems at Artha Global (erstwhile IDFC Institute), a policy research and government consultancy. During my four years at Artha, I led a variety of projects including conducting data analytics to inform Maharashtra’s Chief Minister’s COVID-19 response, designing CMS and GIS analytics platforms for a mapping initiative by Kerala’s government, implementing Punjab’s state data policy, among others.
Due to my fascination with using data to uncover insights, I also became a Data Fellow at the Development Data Partnership within the World Bank in 2021, working with cellphone pings and satellite imagery to unlock insights into societal responses to rapidly changing COVID-19 lockdowns. This research was published and I presented it at a World Bank conference in San Fransisco.
Similar to this work, I’ve conducted and published a vast amount of data-driven research, leading working papers, writing op-eds and policy briefs, and developing web tools that use big data to calculate costs of congestion in Indian cities, investigating the use of GIS in governance, among others (see writing for more).
On a personal note, I’ve been able to build out a 5 person data science team at Artha, which initially started with just me, an achievement that fills me with pride. Due to my obsession with workflows and productivity, I developed a project management system from scratch on Notion for all organization projects and engagements.
To deepen my understanding and properly leverage my skills to make products that improve public services or enhance an average person’s quality of life, I pursued and graduated with a Master of Science in Computational Analysis and Public Policy (MS-CAPP) from the University of Chicago in 2024. Since then, I’ve worked as a data scientist at the Energy & Environment Lab, using my technical skills to design machine learning models that tackle pollution.
In my spare time, I tend to read, watch, and go down rabbit holes about data insights to help me understand the world around me. I can also watch and talk about my childhood passion for football and Formula 1 for hours on end. I’ve also been known for being able to quote a variety of movies, TV shows, and song lyrics even after experiencing them for a single time.