I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School at the Stone Program in Wealth Distribution, Inequality and Social Policy. I graduated with a doctoral degree in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley in August 2025. I also hold a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from Princeton University and a Bachelors in Engineering Degree from Delhi University.
My research agenda is broadly focused on understanding how social and economic inequality reinforce each other, and how this impacts institutional, policy and political outcomes in democracies. I study countries with high income and social inequality, including India, United States, Brazil. Though different in income and institutional design, these large democracies are multiethnic, federal and have high income and social inequality along class, caste, race and gender. Besides Political Science, my research draws also from sociology, psychology and economics.
My dissertation project explores how economically right of center Populist leaders attract popular support, once in office in environments of high social and economic inequality, to get re-elected by getting votes from poor and minority voters. I compare the cases of India, United States and Brazil - federal, multi-ethnic countries where such populism has taken hold. I focus on both top down factors ( strategies and relationship with Institutions) as well as bottom up imperatives (such as why these succeed because of the particular nature of social and economic inequality, business models and institutional configurations in these countries). I use multimethod research including qualitative interviews, survey experiments, qualitative and quantitative coding of political communication, observational analysis and case studies.
Some keywords that fit my research interests are Populism, Redistribution, Status, Inequality, Aspirations, Upward Mobility, Polarization, the Information environment.
Before the doctoral program at Berkeley, I worked in International Development in South Asia including with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group and with the UK Department for International Development (DFID). I worked on Impact Evaluation, Strategy, Development Finance and Climate Change.
At Berkeley's Political Science Department, I have been a member of the Department's Diversity and Inclusion Committee, as well as a representative for Women in Political Science (WIPS) for the academic year 2020-21. I have been a graduate student instructor for undergraduate departmental courses on quantitative research methods, American politics and comparative politics. I am an Associate at the Center on the Politics of Development at Berkeley, and a Fellow for Berkeley's Economy and Society Initiative (BESI). My dissertation committee includes Paul Pierson, Thad Dunning, Steve Vogel, Jennifer Bussell and Alison Post, and at SNF Agora center, I work with Steven Teles and the Center for Economy and Society on political economy barriers to infrastructure building in democracies.
I was born and raised in India, and grew up in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. Passionate about social justice, mentoring, inequality of opportunity and dignity for everyone. In my spare time, I like reading fiction, art, sketching, bodies of water, and watching too many Bollywood and other international movies with subtitles.
