Teaching Assistants

Arushi Bedi is a Policy Manager at J-PAL South Asia where she works on Scale-Ups of evidence based programs.

Before joining J-PAL, she worked with Air Pollution Action Group where she worked on planning and implementation of programs to reduce air pollution in UP and Bihar . She also has experience working with different state and district governments on implementation for the National Nutrition Mission, Swatch Bharat Mission, National Rural Livelihoods Missions and National Health Mission. Before joining the development sector, she worked as a Health Policy reporter with Outlook Magazine.

Arushi holds a Masters in Public Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences and another Masters in Media and Communications from Symbiosis Institute.

Ishwari Sonawane is a Training Associate at J-PAL South Asia where she works to support building capacity for evidence-based policymaking and monitoring and evaluation. Prior to joining J-PAL, Ishwari completed her Bachelors of Arts in Economics from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai. She has worked with CSBC, Niti Aayog as a fellow in the Behavioural Insights in Policy Fellowship. She has also been a student representative from India for the South Asian Economic Student Meet. 

Murali Mallikarjunan leads the partnership with the State Government of Tamil Nadu(GoTN) to institutionalize an evidence informed approach to policymaking. As a part of his role, he manages the research, scale-up and policy outreach engagements with the state. Further, he works on the Early Childhood Education project and supports the Elderly Panel Survey within Tamil Nadu.

Before joining J-PAL, he was the Director-Curriculum at Bhumi, a non-profit volunteer organization and a Teach For India Fellow prior to that. His interests lie in Education. Murali holds a Masters in Education, International Education Policy, from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Nikhila Vijay is working as a Senior Research Associate for the Smart Metering Evaluation project in Jammu. She is interested in sustainable policies for addressing issues related to multi-dimensional poverty. She most recently worked at the United Nations Office for Project Services, Supplier Sustainability team, where she worked on evaluating, measuring and reporting supply chain sustainability for the organisation. 

Previously, she worked at Climate Investment Funds, where she analysed and reported on the social and economic impacts of renewable energy and clean technology projects in low and middle-income countries. She also worked on a project for the Government of Karnataka, where she conducted an analysis of the skills development and training programs of the state government and its role in employment generation. Prior to this, she worked as a Business Manager in the strategy and insights team of a global media investment company.

Rijul Grover is a Senior Policy and Training Associate at J-PAL South Asia, where he works in the Education sector. 

Prior to joining J-PAL, Rijul worked as a Research Associate to Professor Rohini Somanathan at the Centre for Development Economics on the 'Design of Vaccines Market' project supported by the Gates Foundation. He briefly worked as a Junior Investment Banker at Nomura in the Debt Capital Markets. 

Rijul holds a Masters in Economics from Delhi School of Economics after having graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Hindu College, Delhi University.

Rijul's areas of interest lie in measurement accuracy and breaking down causality technicalities to policy implementers. He has co-authored a technical note on avoiding distortions in assessing impacts of shocks using asynchronous surveys in the light of covid-19 induced disruptions in routine immunisation services using India's DHS. 

Outside work, you can find him baking, cooking and marveling at scale model aircrafts!

Sharvari Ravishankar is a Research Manager at J-PAL South Asia on the Migration and Technology project in collaboration with the online recruitment website QuikrJobs in Bangalore. The study aims to see the effects of information provision to jobseekers on labor market outcomes. 

Prior to joining as a Research Associate, Sharvari interned with the Aging Panel Study (TNNAGE) project in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

Sharvari holds a Master's degree in Economics from Ashoka University and a Bachelor's degree in Economics from Ramjas College, University of Delhi.

Vatsala M Sharma is a Policy Manager (Scale Ups) at J-PAL South Asia. She works on the scale up of the evidence-based Math Games Early Childhood Education Programme. Her interests lie at the intersection of education and developmental psychology. 

Prior to J-PAL SA, Vatsala worked as a part of the core team of the Top Parent project, which is a public goods android application built to boost early childhood outcomes in low-income communities. She curated a child and parent curriculum for the user base and co-ordinated a year long study to test the efficacy of the application. 

Vatsala has also completed the Teach for India fellowship in India and holds a Masters degree in Education, Human Development, and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.