Speaker Bios (Parallel)

Dinesh Abrol, Professor, ISID

Dinesh Abrol is currently working at the Institute of Studies in Industrial Development (ISID) India, where he coordinates the ISID-PHFI collaborative research program on innovation, industry and public health. He is also a visiting professor at the Centre for Studies in Science Policy. Before that, he was chief scientist at the National Institute of Science Technology and Development studies (NISTADS). Abrol is known for his research work on pharmaceutical industry, intellectual property, innovation management, technology assessment and science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. His collaborative research projects include collaborations with the scholars contributing to the research institutions of Argentina, Brazil, China, United Kingdom and United States working on a wide range of interconnection topics arising out of the formulation of technology policies for latecomer countries with large populations and huge development deficit like India, Brazil and China. 

Pramod Aggarwal, Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security Regional Program Leader for South Asia, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR)

Prof. Pramod Aggarwal holds a Ph.D. in Life Sciences from the University of Indore, India, another Ph.D. from the Wageningen University, Netherlands, and a M.Sc. in Botany from University of Delhi, India. He currently leads the South Asia Regional Program for the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS). Aggarwal was the Coordinating Lead Author for the chapter 'Food, Fiber, and Forest Products' of the Fourth Assessment Report (2007) of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change. He was a Review Editor for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report.

Nambi Appadurai, India Adaptation Strategy Head for the Climate Resilience Practice, World Resources Institute (WRI)

Arivudai Nambi Appadurai (Nambi) is the India Adaptation Strategy Head for the Climate Resilience Practiceand WRI India. Nambi is a climate change adaptation specialist with research and project management experience at the national and international levels. Most of his research has focused on climate risk management and adaptation in Asia and Africa. He has extensive experience using participatory approaches to support climate risk mainstreaming, as well as working with both communities and government officials on climate risk planning and up-scaling best practices. He is currently exploring ways to integrate adaptation into development processes at the national and community levels.

Karishma Banga, Overseas Development Institute 

Karishma Banga currently works at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and is a PhD researcher at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. She works on Trade, Global Value Chains and the Digital economy. Her current project is 'Global Value Chains; Implications for the Indian Economy

Edward Brown. Director of Policy Advisory Service

Dr. Edward K. Brown is Director of Country Engagements and Operations at ACET. He has more than 35 years' experience in international development and public policy, half of which were spent at the World Bank. He has worked extensively in Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.

François Bourguignon, Professor, Paris School of Economics

François Bourguignon is director of studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales - EHESS. Originally trained as a statistician, he earned a PhD in economics from the University of Western Ontario and a PhD from the University of Orleans. He held the position of Director of the Paris School of Economics from 2007 to the end of January 2013. His theoretical and empirical work focuses on income distribution and redistribution in developing and developed countries. Bourguignon is the author of several books and numerous articles in international economic journals. He has received during his career several scientific distinctions and taught at several foreign universities. He has a wealth of consulting experience with several governments and international organizations. From 2003 to 2007, he was the chief economist and first vice president of the World Bank in Washington. He is currently Chair of the GDN Board of Directors.

Dhrupad Choudhury, Regional Programme Manager Adaptation to Change & Senior Livelihood and Adaptation Specialist, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)

For a little over two and a half decades, Dr Choudhury has been working among marginalized mountain communities of the Himalayas, initially as a researcher but later, progressively as a development practitioner. His focus of interest has spanned natural resource management, policy and market driven transformations, livelihood security and for the last decade, climate change adaptation and resilience building.  His special areas of interest are Mountain agriculture and upland farming, particularly Transformations in Shifting Cultivation, with special focus on tenurial and access regimes and Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Building. Significant contributions of his work has included the designing, development and successful implementation of a strategy for managing transformations in shifting cultivation areas (in an IFAD funded development project in India), and the contribution as member of the Technical Support Group for drafting the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Bill in India, enacted as an Act of the Parliament in 2007.

Xavier Estupinan, Wage Specialist International Labor Organization

Xavier Estupinan is a wage specialist for ILO’s Decent Work Team for South Asia.  He has been a Director of Wage Analysis and Undersecretary of Employment and Wages at the Ministry of Labour of Ecuador.  And has served as a Technical secretary and President of the National Wage Council.  He is an Economist and has a Master’s Degree in Social Science from the University of Tamkang ROC.

Bharati Joshi, Technical Director, Economic Development Unit, CARE India 

Bharati has over 18 years of experience in livelihood sector programming and implementation, team building at multiple levels, and program quality assurance. As Technical Director of CARE India’s Economic Development Unit, she is currently spear-heading organisation’s programming and strategizing for women’s economic empowerment. Her portfolio includes clean energy and climate adaptation initiatives. With her team, Bharati also ensures quality of and technical backstopping to CARE’s livelihood initiatives in tribal and dalit dominated geographies, wherein Gender Transformative Change, Resilience, and Inclusive Governance are three key cross-cutting themes. Before joining CARE India, Bharati has worked with different organisations in the areas of design and management of development support to grassroot NGOs, and livelihood sector action research, training, and extension, in different States. She holds a Masters degree in Extension for Natural Resource Based Livelihoods from the University of Reading (UK), an MSc in Plant Molecular Biology from Delhi University and Post Graduate Diploma in Forestry Management from Indian Institute of Forest Management (Bhopal).

Dr. Naohiro Kitano, Director, JICA Research Institute (JICA-RI)

Naohiro Kitano is director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency's (JICA) Research Institute (JICA-RI). He studied in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing from 1981 to 1982. In 1983, he graduated from the civil engineering department at Waseda University and joined the former Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund of Japan. Prior to his current assignment, he served as an associate professor at the Graduate School of Economics at Kyoto University; as director general of the Development Assistance Department II at the Japan Bank for International Cooperation; as director general, East and Central Asia and the Caucasus Department for JICA; and deputy director of JICA-RI. He studied in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University from 1988 to 1991 and received a Ph.D. in 1997.

Anupam Khanna, Chief Economist and Director-General of Policy Outreach, National Association of Software and Service Companies

Saibal Kar, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC)

He is currently professor of economics at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC), India and a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany. He has been professor of economics, Calcutta University and has taught in Presidency University and other places in India. He was a Research Fellow of the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany during 2008-09. He held visiting positions at University of Amsterdam, Santa Fe Institute, Hamburg University, University of East Anglia, United Nations University- Helsinki, etc. His research interests are broadly in the areas of Labor Economics, International Economics and Applied Microeconomics. He has published many papers and books published by OUP, Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, etc. in these areas. He is the Managing Editor, South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance (Sage).

Gaston Meskens, Lecturer, Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences

Gaston Meskens is a researcher in philosophy, lecturer, writer and artist with an academic background in science (Master in Theoretical Physics with an orientation in nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and cosmology from the University of Ghent, Belgium). He currently works part-time with the Centre for Ethics and Value Inquiry of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the University of Ghent (Belgium) and with the Science and Technology Studies group of the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre SCK•CEN (Belgium).

Nafees Meah, Country Representative for South Asia, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)

Dr. Nafees Meah works with governments of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, including Nepal, Bangladesh, and India to represent and coordinate IRRI’s programs regionally. He also leads the development of a regional strategy and supports the development of individual country strategies for IRRI’s research, outreach, training, and resource mobilization activities in consultation with key universities, civil society organizations, and international donors and organizations. Prior to joining IRRI, Nafees served as director of the UK Research Councils (RCUK) India from 2012 to 2016.

Anit Mukherjee, Policy Fellow at Centre for Global Development

Anit Mukherjee is a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development where he works on issues of governance, public finance, and service delivery in developing countries. His current research focuses on the impact of biometric ID and digital payment systems to reform public subsidies, improve financial inclusion, and promote gender empowerment. Prior to joining CGD, Mukherjee was an associate professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy in New Delhi from 2005-2013 where he designed and implemented innovative citizen-led public expenditure tracking surveys in education and health. As a policy advisor to the world’s largest biometric ID program, Aadhaar, he was involved in the design of direct benefit transfer of subsidies in India. Previously, Mukherjee has served as MDG financing advisor to the Government of Yemen, worked as a consultant for the World Bank and UNAIDS on financing of HIV/AIDS programs in Asia-Pacific, and designed gender-focused social protection as advisor to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Mukherjee studied economics at Presidency College, Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and obtained a PhD in policy and planning sciences from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and has been cited in major news outlets including Bloomberg, BBC, Financial Times, and NPR. His latest book, Social Sector in a Decentralized Economy: India in the Era of Globalization, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2016.

Jyoti Parikh, Executive Director of the Integrated Research and Action for Development (IRADe)

Professor Jyoti K Parikh, Executive Director of (IRADe) was a Member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change – India and is a recipient of Nobel Peace Prize awarded to IPCC authors in 2007. She served as the senior professor and Acting Director  of  Indira  Gandhi  Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai 1986-2003, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria for 8 years (1980-86, 76-78) and Planning Commission, as senior energy consultant at New Delhi (1978-80). She has served as energy consultant to the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Energy, EEC, Brussels and UN agencies such as UNIDO, FAO, UNU, and UNESCO, Environment Consultant to UNDP, World Bank and so on. She worked as an advisor to various ministries for Gov. of India. She obtained her M.Sc. from University of California, Berkeley, in 1964 and Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from University of Maryland, College Park in 1967. She has guided 12 Ph.D. theses in energy, environment and climate change and given lectures in more than 40 countries around the world.

Merve Sancak, University of Cambridge

Merve is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. In her research, she conducts an institutional analysis of vocational education and training systems in Mexico and Turkey, with a special focus on the local automotive industry. She compares the effects of national and global factors on firms’ behaviour and the impact of these on firms and workers. She received her undergraduate degree in Economics and International Relations from Koc Universtity, Istanbul. During this, she also studied at Bocconi University, Milan for one semester, where she focused her studies on the politics and economics of the European Union. After, she completed her Master of Science degree at the University of Oxford in Comparative Social Policy, where she completed her thesis on comparative political economy of pension reforms in Greece and Turkey. Upon her master’s degree, she worked in policy research and implementation. 

Neeraj Trivedi, Senior Research and Training Manager

Neeraj is the Senior Research and Training Manager at Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD), IFMR in India. He leads the capacity building portfolio of EPoD in India that focuses on building capacities of policymakers and government agencies to use evidence and economic theory for decision-making. Simultaneously, Neeraj also manages a couple of research projects in the gender and financial inclusion portfolio of EPoD India. Prior to EPoD, Neeraj was with Pratham, a leading educational non-profit in India, for around seven years. At Pratham, Neeraj managed large-scale school- and community-based education programs in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. He also led capacity building initiatives with government functionaries and non-government organizations on using evidence to translate policy into practice. His core interest lies in ensuring access to quality education to all children across the world, including the most vulnerable ones. 

Cecilia Ugaz Estrada, Director, Department of Policy Research and Statistics, UNIDO

Prior to joining the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Cecilia Ugaz Estrada served as the United Nations resident coordinator as well as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative for Paraguay. She also served as the deputy resident representative for UNDP in Argentina and as deputy director for the Human Development Report Office in UNDP headquarters in New York.

Masaru Yarime, Associate Professor at the School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong