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I am a Senior Lecturer of Development Economics at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, where I previously served as a Presidential Fellow (Academic) in Economics of Poverty Reduction. Before joining Manchester, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Penn Social Norms Group (PennSONG) at the University of Pennsylvania and a research affiliate at the Centre for Social Norms and Behavioral Dynamics. My postdoctoral research focused on measuring social networks and identifying the social drivers of sanitation and open defecation behaviours in both rural and urban contexts in Bihar and Tamil Nadu. I earlier held a faculty position as Assistant Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Trivandrum, where I taught courses in Impact Evaluation, Development Economics, and Mathematical Economics. I completed my PhD at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, where I worked on issues related to targeting, political economy and impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) in India.

A significant part of my current research focuses on ways to enhance cognitive, non-cognitive, and mental health outcomes among school-going adolescents in rural India. Specifically, I am working on teacher-led interventions to enhance 21st-century skills and studying the impact of government initiatives to integrate AI learning into school curricula. My broader interests also include social protection programs, education, social norms, health, and environmental issues. Methodologically, I primarily use applied econometrics and impact evaluation techniques.

If you want to know more about my work and discuss further, please contact me at the given email id (upasak.das@manchester.ac.uk/ upasak.das@gmail.com). Follow me on X: @upasak_das