6th GW India Conference: Speaker Bios
Deregulating the Economy: Priorities, Opportunities and Challenges
Can India Advance Without Addressing Gender Imbalances
Lunch Keynote Session: “In Spite of the Gods: India’s Rise to a Viksit Bharat”
AI: India’s Boon or Bane: What Must India Do to Maximize AI’s Potential for a Viksit Bharat.
India’s Trade Strategy in an Uncertain World
Closing Session: “India’s Development Odyssey”
Welcome & Opening Keynotes
Remi Jedwab
Professor of International Affairs & Economics; Director, Institute for International Economic Policy, GW
- Bio
Rémi Jedwab is a professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Elliott School and the Department of Economics of George Washington University, the Director of the Institute for International Economic Policy, the Director of the ESIA Initiative on Climate Change and Sustainable Cities, and the co-Director of the Local Sustainable Governance Lab at George Washington University, and an Affiliated Scholar of the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University. Professor Jedwab's main fields of research are urban, regional and real estate economics, development and growth, environmental economics, and applied micro. Some of the issues he has studied include the economics of cities, urbanization and structural transformation, the economic determinants and effects of vertical urban development, construction and climate change, population growth, sustainable development, the determinants and effects of transportation infrastructure, and the roles of demography, institutions, history, human capital and technology in development and growth. He is the co-founder and co-organizer of the World Bank-GWU-IGC Urbanization and Poverty Reduction Conference, the World BankGWU-UVA Conference on The Economics of Sustainable Development, the World Bank-GWU Livable and Sustainable Cities workshop series, and the Washington Area Development Economics Symposium. He is also a co-editor of the World Bank Economic Review, an associate editor at the Journal of Urban Economics and Regional Science and Urban Economics, and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board at World Development.
Read his full biography: https://elliott.gwu.edu/remi-jedwab
Alyssa Ayres
Dean, Elliott School of International Affairs, GW
- Bio
Alyssa Ayres was appointed dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs and professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University effective February 1, 2021. She is the first woman to serve in the role of permanent dean at the school. Ayres is a foreign policy practitioner and award-winning author with senior experience in the government, nonprofit, and private sectors. From 2013 to 2021, she was senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), where she remains an adjunct senior fellow.
Her work focuses primarily on India’s role in the world and on U.S. relations with South Asia in the larger Indo-Pacific. Her book about India’s rise on the world stage, Our Time Has Come: How India is Making Its Place in the World, was published by Oxford University Press in January 2018 and was selected by the Financial Times for its “Summer 2018: Politics” list. An updated paperback edition was released in 2019. Ayres is also interested in the emergence of subnational engagement in foreign policy, particularly the growth of international city networks, and her current book project (working title, “Bright Lights, Biggest Cities: The Urban Challenge to India’s Future,” under contract with Oxford University Press) examines India’s urban transformation and its international implications.
From 2010 to 2013 Ayres served as deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia. During her tenure at the State Department in the Barack Obama administration, she covered all issues across a dynamic region of 1.3 billion people at the time (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka) and provided policy direction for four U.S. embassies and four consulates. Before serving in the Obama administration, Ayres was founding director of the India and South Asia practice at McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory firm, from 2008 to 2010, and served as a part-time senior advisor to the firm from 2014 to 2021. From 2007 to 2008, she served as special assistant to the undersecretary of state for political affairs as a CFR international affairs fellow. Prior to that she worked at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for the Advanced Study of India and at the Asia Society in New York.
Read her full biography: https://elliott.gwu.edu/alyssa-ayres
V. Anantha Nageswaran
Chief Economic Advisor, Government of India
- Bio
Dr. Nageswaran is the Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India. He is also a writer, author, and a teacher. He has written a weekly Mint column for fifteen years and co-authored four books. He has taught at several business schools and institutes of management in India and in Singapore. He was the Dean of the IFMR Graduate School of Business and a distinguished Visiting Professor of Economics at Krea University. He was one of the founders of Aavishkaar Venture Capital Fund and the Takshashila Institution. He served as a Currency Economist at the Union Bank of Switzerland; Head of Research and Investment Consulting in Credit Suisse Private Banking in Asia; and Head of Asia Research and Global Chief Investment Officer at Bank Julius Baer. He was an independent Director on the Boards of TVS Supply Chain Solutions, Sundaram Fasteners, TVS Sri Chakra Tyres, Delphi TVS and Aparajitha Corporate Services. He received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He earned his doctoral degree from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Read his full biography: https://live.worldbank.org/en/experts/v/v-anantha-nageswaran
Sukaran Singh
CEO, Tata Advanced Systems
- Bio
Sukaran Singh is the CEO and MD of Tata Advanced Systems. Tata Advanced Systems is the aerospace and defense company of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group.
Sukaran has worked in the Tata Group since 2003 when he joined the office of the Group Chairman of Tata Sons to work on 'globalisation'. Working for Tata Sons Chairman, Sukaran led a range of new business opportunities that required leveraging cross-linkages between multiple Tata companies in industries such as metals, mining and energy. In aerospace and defense, he has helped build and now leadsTata Advanced SystemsLtd.. Tata Advanced Systems is now one of the largest defense and aerospace companies in the private sector in India and acts as both an operating company and a holding company for its joint ventures with companies such as Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky and Boeing and undertakes multiple strategic projects for the Indian armed forces and defense development agencies. The company has recently acquired and successfully integrated four other Tata companies that were operating in military land systems, weapon systems and commercial aerostructures.
Sukaran completed his Bachelors in Economics from St.Stephen's College in Delhi, did the Politics, Philosophy &Economics degree at Oxford University and an MBA at the University of Chicago.
Read his full biography: https://www.tataadvancedsystems.com/about
Deregulating the Economy: Priorities, Opportunities and Challenges
Richard Rossow
Senior Adviser and Chair on India and Emerging Asia Economics, CSIS
- Bio
Richard Rossow is a senior adviser and holds the Chair on India and Emerging Asia Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). In this role, he helps frame and shape policies to promote greater business and economic engagement between the two countries, with a unique focus on tracking and engaging Indian states. He has been working on U.S.-India relations for over 25 years. He joined CSIS in 2014 after a long career in a range of private sector roles focused on India. Prior to CSIS, he served as director for South Asia at McLarty Associates, leading the firm’s work for clients in India and the neighboring region, and he retains his affiliation with the firm. From 2008 to 2012, Mr. Rossow was with New York Life Insurance company, most recently as head of international governmental affairs, where he developed strategic plans for the company’s public policy and global mergers and acquisitions work and helped manage the firm’s policy issues in India. From 1998 to 2008, Mr. Rossow served as deputy director of the U.S.-India Business Council (USIBC), the world’s leading advocacy group on behalf of strengthening economic ties between the United States and India. While at USIBC, he managed the council’s policy groups in the energy, information technology, insurance, media and entertainment, and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Rossow received his BA from Grand Valley State University in Michigan.
Read his full biography: www.csis.org/people/richard-m-rossow
Manish Sabharwal
Co-Founder and Non-Executive Non-Independent Director, Team-Lease Services
- Bio
Manish is the co-founder of Teamlease Services, India’s largest staffing and human capital firm. Teamlease has over 400,000 employees in 5000 cities and is implementing India’s first national PPP apprenticeship program. The company has hired over 20 lakh employees in the last 20 years.
Earlier, he co-founded India Life, an HR services company that was acquired by NYSE-listed Hewitt Associates. Consequently, he served as CEO of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) in Singapore.
Manish has been part of various central and state government committees on education, employment and employability. He has served on the Boards of the Reserve Bank of India, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and the National Skill Mission. He currently serves on the boards of Teamlease, New India Foundation, NCAER, Neev Academy, Gaja Capital, Phonepe, and Kanpur Education Society.
He is a columnist for the Indian Express and an alumnus of The Wharton School, Shriram College and Mayo College. Born and brought up in J&K, he is the supporting author of Kashmir under 370 and co-author of Made in India.
Read his full biography:
Shruti Rajagopalan
Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University
- Bio
Shruti Rajagopalan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center and a Fellow at the Classical Liberal Institute at New York University School of Law. She leads the India political economy research program and Emergent Ventures India at Mercatus. She was an Associate Professor of Economics at Purchase College, State University of New York. She earned her Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University in 2013 and is an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship. Additionally, she has a BA (hons) in Economics and an LL.B. from University of Delhi and an LL.M. from the European Masters in Law and Economics Program at University of Hamburg, Ghent University, and University of Bologna.
Read her full biography:
Can India Advance Without Addressing Gender Imbalances?
James Foster
Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, GW
- Bio
James E. Foster is the Oliver T. Carr Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics at the George Washington University.
Dr. Foster is also a Research Associate at the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative at Oxford University. His research focuses on welfare economics — using economic tools to evaluate and enhance the well-being of people. His joint 1984 Econometrica paper (with Joel Greer and Erik Thorbecke) is one of the most cited papers on poverty. It introduced the FGT Index, which has been used in thousands of studies and was employed in targeting the Progresa CCT program in Mexico. Other research includes work on economic inequality with Amartya Sen; on the distribution of human development with Luis Felipe Lopez-Calva and Miguel Szekely; on multidimensional poverty with Sabina Alkire; and on literacy with Kaushik Basu.
Professor Foster’s work underlies many well-known social indices including the global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) published annually by the UNDP in the Human Development Report, dozens of national MPIs used to guide domestic policy against poverty, the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI) at USAID, the Gross National Happiness Index of Bhutan, the Better Jobs Index of the InterAmerican Development Bank, and the Statistical Performance Index of the World Bank.
He received his Ph.D. in economics from Cornell University and holds a Doctorate Honoris Causa from Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo (Mexico).
Dr. Foster is an affiliated faculty member of the Global Food Institute at GW.
Read his full biography:
Ratna Sahay
Honorary Professor & Director, Center on Gender and the Macroeconomy, NCAER, New Delhi; Non-Resident Fellow, CGD
- Bio
Ratna Sahay is Honorary Professor and Director of the Center on Gender and the Macroeconomy at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in New Delhi and a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD) in Washington DC. She worked at the IMF for 33 years, where she served as Special Advisor to the Managing Director and Senior Advisor on Gender and during 2021-2023. Before that, she worked in several regional and functional departments, heading regional and country missions and leading policy papers in the areas of monetary and exchange rate policy, capital account, financial development, financial inclusion, and gender. She recently served on the women empowerment working group of the G-20 and as member of the World Economic Forum’s Future Council on the Care Economy. She is currently a member of the IMF’s External Advisory Panel on Gender. She has published widely in leading economic journals. She has taught at Delhi University and New York University and holds a PhD in Economics from New York University.
Read her full biography:
S Anukriti
Senior Economist, Development Research Group, The World Bank
- Bio
S Anukriti is a Senior Economist at the World Bank's Development Research Group (DECRG). She is an applied microeconomist, with interests in the fields of development economics, economics of gender and the family, and political economy. Her research examines the underlying causes of gender inequalities and explores mechanisms that can bring about gender equity. More broadly, she is interested in the role of social norms, formal and informal institutions, and public policy in affecting social change. Dr. Anukriti received a PhD in Economics from Columbia University, an MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, and a BA (Honors) in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. She is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Labor Economics (IZA). Prior to joining the World Bank in July 2020, she was an Associate Professor of Economics at Boston College. She currently serves as a Board member for two research initiatives of the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development -- WEE-DiFine and WEE-Connect. Additionally, she is a member of the FP-Impact Consortium's Technical Advisory Group. She also co-leads the World Bank Center for Research on Women and Jobs (CRWJ) and is a regular contributor to the Development Impact blog. For more about her research, please visit her research page.
Read her full biography: www.worldbank.org/en/about/people/s/s-anukriti
Lunch Keynote Session: “In Spite of the Gods: India’s Rise to a Viksit Bharat”
Ajay Chhibber
Distinguished Visiting Scholar, GW IIEP, Distinguished Fellow, Ashoka University
- Bio
Dr. Ajay Chhibber was the first Director General, Independent Evaluation Office, India (Minister of State) and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy 2015-2017. He served earlier as Assistant Secretary General, UN and Assistant Administrator, UNDP from 2008-2013 where he led the Department for Asia and the Pacific. At the World Bank where he served over 24 years in senior positions as Country Director in Turkey and Vietnam, and Director the seminal 1997 World Development Report on the Role of the State.
He has a Ph. D from Stanford University (1983), an MA from the Delhi School of Economics (1976) and was awarded the David Rajaram Prize for best all-rounder at St Stephen’s College, Delhi University where he received BA Hons in Economics (1971-74). He has also done advanced management courses at Harvard University 2001 and at INSEAD, France 2005.
He has written six books on Economic Development and published numerous articles in major journals. His latest book Unshackling India: Hard Truths and Clear Choices for Economic Revival, with Salman Soz, Harper-Collins India, November 2021 was Declared Best New Book in Economics in the Financial Times 2022 and awarded India Economic Forum Literary Award for 2022. He writes regularly for newspapers and business magazines.
Read his full biography:
Edward Luce
US National Editor, The Financial Times; Former FT Correspondent India
- Bio
Edward Luce is the US national editor and a columnist at the Financial Times. Luce's biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski "Zbig, The life of Zbig Brzezinski: America's great power prophet", was published in May 2025 and is a New York Times bestseller.
Before that he was the FT's Washington Bureau chief. Other roles have included South Asia bureau chief, Capital Markets editor, and Philippines Correspondent. Luce was previously the speechwriter for the US Treasury Secretary, Lawrence H. Summers, in the Clinton administration.
He is the author of three highly acclaimed books, The Retreat of Western Liberalism (2017), Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent (2012), and In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India (2007). He appears regularly on CNN, NPR, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, and the BBC.
He is also the author, along with colleague Rana Foroohar, of the Swamp Notes newsletter, which covers the intersection of money, power, and politics in America.
Read his full biography:
AI: India’s Boon or Bane:
What Must India Do to Maximize AI’s Potential for a Viksit Bharat
Susan Aaronson
Research Professor, GW; Director, Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub
- Bio
Research Professor, GW Elliott School of International Affairs; Director, Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub.
Susan Ariel Aaronson is a Research Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University (GWU). Aaronson is also co-principal investigator with the NSF -NIST (National Science Foundation and (National Institute of Standards and Technology), Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS), where she leads research on data and AI governance. Aaronson is also named one of GWU's Public Interest Technology Scholars, where she works to encourage interdisciplinary research on technology in the public interest.
Read her full biography: https://elliott.gwu.edu/susan-aaronson
Gaurav Nayyar
Economic Adviser and Director, World Development Report 2026, The World Bank
- Bio
Gaurav Nayyar is Director of the World Development Report 2026 on Artificial Intelligence for Development and an Economic Adviser in the Development Economics Vice Presidency at the World Bank, which he joined as a Young Professional in 2013. Previously, he was an Economics Affairs Officer in the Economic Research Division of the World Trade Organization, where he co-led the World Trade Report 2013 on Factors Shaping the Future of World Trade. Gaurav’s research interests lie primarily in the areas of economic growth, structural transformation, trade, technological change, industrialization, and firm productivity, and he has published in a variety of academic journals on these issues. His latest book is At Your Service? The Promise of Services-Led Development. Gaurav holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Oxford, where he was a Dorothy Hodgkin Scholar. His other alma maters include the London School of Economics and Political Science, the University of Cambridge, and St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
Read his full biography:
Anirudh Suri
Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Managing Dir., India Internet Fund
- Bio
Anirudh Suri is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. His interests lie at the intersection of technology, AI, geopolitics and strategic affairs and how India is carving and cementing its role in the global tech ecosystem.
He is the author of The Great Tech Game: Shaping Geopolitics and the Destinies of Nations (HarperCollins, 2022) and hosts The Great Tech Game Podcast and the AI Futures Podcast. He is currently the managing partner at India Internet Fund, a technology-focused venture capital fund based in India and the United States.He has also written extensively on foreign policy, geopolitics, cybersecurity, climate, technology, and entrepreneurship in publications such as the Indian Express, Times of India, Hindustan Times, Foreign Policy, the Print, the New Republic, Economic Times, MoneyControl, and Asia Times. Previously, he has worked with the government of India in New Delhi, McKinsey and Company in New York, Goldman Sachs in London, and China Institute of International Studies in Beijing. He completed his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, his MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, and holds a bachelor's degree in economics and political science from Haverford College, Pennsylvania. He has also studied Mandarin Chinese at the Beijing Foreign Studies University. Named a Goldman Sachs Global Leader, he has also served on the board of the Harvard Alumni Association.
Read his full biography:
India’s Trade Strategy in an Uncertain World
Mary Lovely
Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow, PIIE
- Bio
Mary E. Lovely is the Anthony M. Solomon Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute. She served as the 2022 Carnegie Chair in US-China Relations with the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. Lovely is professor emeritus of economics at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, where she was Melvin A. Eggers Economics Faculty Scholar from 2010 to April 2022. She was coeditor of the China Economic Review during 2011–15.
Her current research projects investigate the effect of China's foreign direct investment policies on trade flows and entry mode, strategic reform of US tariffs on China, and recent movements in global supply chains. Lovely earned her PhD in economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a master's degree in city and regional planning from Harvard University.
Read her full biography:
https://www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/mary-e-lovel
Sajjid Chinoy
Head of Asia Economics and Chief India Economist, J.P. Morgan
- Bio
Dr. Sajjid Z. Chinoy is Managing Director and Chief India Economist at J.P. Morgan, where he has been since 2010. He is also currently serving a second term as part-time member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
Dr. Chinoy previously served on the Advisory Council to India’s 15th Finance Commission, and was a member of the “Expert Committee to Revise and Strengthen the Monetary Policy Framework” set up by the Reserve Bank of India in 2013, which proposed inflation targeting. He has served on other RBI committees including Offshore Rupee Markets and Developing a Secondary Market for Corporate Loans. In 2016, he served as a consultant to the FRBM Review Committee which proposed a new fiscal anchor for India.
Dr. Chinoy has been ranked as one of India’s Best Fixed Income Researchers by Asset Magazine for every year since 2013, and was awarded the1. P. Morgan Excellence Award for Value Creation in 2011. He has co-edited a book, “India’s External, Financial and Fiscal Polices” with Dr. Anne O. Krueger, former First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF. His research has been published in several books, conference volumes, IMF and RBI working papers, and in journals including the Journal of International Economics.
Dr. Chinoy has previously worked at the IMF and McKinsey & Company. He received his Ph.D. at Stanford University. His dissertation won the EXIM Bank award for the best dissertation by an Indian national for 2001.
Dr. Chinoy received his Bachelor’ s degree in Economics and Computer Science at the University of Richmond, Virginia, where he stood first in his batch of 660 students. Awards he received included the C.J. Gray Award for Outstanding Leadership and Scholarship, the Oldham Scholarship, Phi Beta Kappa, the Kent Computer Science Award, the Omicron Delta Kappa National Fellowship, and the Golden Key National Scholar award for 1996, awarded to five students annually in the United States. He was chosen as the student commencement speaker at his graduation ceremony in 1996, and his speech was published in the Art of Public Speaking, by Stephen Lucas.
Read his full biography:
Pravin Krishna
Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business, JHU-SAIS
- Bio
Pravin Krishna is the Chung Ju Yung Distinguished Professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University, where he is jointly appointed in the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC and the Department of Economics in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) in Baltimore. Professor Krishna is also Co-Chair of the Bernard L. Schwartz Globalization Initiative at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Professor Krishna has previously been Professor of Economics at Brown University and has also held appointments at a number of other universities, including the University of Chicago, Columbia University, Princeton University, Stanford University and INSEAD. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
Professor Krishna’s areas of research interest include international economics, international political economy, the political economy of policy reform, economic development and the political economy of India. His research has been published in numerous journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, the Review of Economics and Statistics, International Organization, the Journal of International Economics and the Journal of Development Economics. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of International Economics and the Journal of Policy Reform. A recipient of research funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), he is the author of Trade Blocs: Economics and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and along with Jagdish Bhagwati and Arvind Panagariya is co-editor of Trading Blocs: Alternate Analyses of Preferential Trade Agreements (MIT Press, 1999). He holds a BA in Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and an MA, MPhil and PhD from Columbia University.
Read his full biography:
Closing Session: “India’s Development Odyssey”
Aparna Pande
Senior Fellow, India and South Asia, Hudson Institute
- Bio
Aparna Pande is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute where her work focuses on India and South Asia.
Dr. Pande wrote her PhD dissertation on Pakistan’s foreign policy. Her major field of interest is South Asia with a special focus on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, foreign policy, and security. She has contributed to the American Interest, the Hindustan Times, the Times of India, the Live Mint, Huffington Post, the Sunday Guardian, The Print, and RealClearWorld.
Dr. Pande’s book's include Explaining Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Escaping India (Routledge, 2011), From Chanakya to Modi: Evolution of India’s Foreign Policy (Harper Collins, 2017), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Pakistan (Routledge, August 2017), and Making India Great: The Promise of a Reluctant Global Power (Harper Collins, 2020).
A 1993 graduate of Delhi University, Dr. Pande holds a master of arts in history from St. Stephens College at Delhi University and a master of philosophy in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Dr. Pande received a doctorate in political science from Boston University in 2010.
Read her full biography: www.hudson.org/experts/599-aparna-pande
Devesh Kapur
Starr Foundation Professor of South Asia Studies, JHU-SAIS; co-author “A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey”
- Bio
Devesh Kapur is Starr Foundation Professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is the coauthor of The World Bank: Its First Half Century; Public Institutions in India: Performance and Design. His recent books include The Other One Percent: Indians in America; Regulation in India: Design, Capacity, Performance; Internal Security in India: Violence, Order and the State; The Oxford Handbook of Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific; and A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey (co-authored with Arvind Subramanian). Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, he held appointments at the Brookings Institution, Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.
Read his full biography:
Arvind Subramanian
Senior Fellow, PIIE; co-author “A Sixth of Humanity: Independent India’s Development Odyssey”
- Bio
Arvind Subramanian, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, has been associated with the Institute since 2007. He was the Dennis Weatherstone Senior Fellow at the Institute during 2013–14 and was on leave for public service from 2014 to August 2023.
Previously, he was senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, distinguished nonresident fellow at the Center for Global Development, professor at Ashoka University, New Delhi, and visiting lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School. He served as the chief economic advisor to the government of India between 2014 and 2018. He currently advises the government of the Indian state Tamil Nadu on macroeconomic and sectoral issues.
He obtained his undergraduate degree from St. Stephens College, his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad, and his M.Phil and D.Phil from the University of Oxford.
Read his full biography: www.piie.com/experts/senior-research-staff/arvind-subramanian
Ashutosh Varshney
Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences, Professor of Political Science, Brown University
- Bio
Ashutosh Varshney is the Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and political science at Brown University. He previously taught at Harvard University (1989-98) and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2001-2008).
His books include "Battles Half Won: India’s Improbable Democracy" (2013), "Collective Violence in Indonesia" (2009), "Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India" (Yale 2002), "India in the Era of Economic Reforms" (1999) and "Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India" (Cambridge 1995).
The awards based on his research include the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Carnegie Fellowship, the Gregory Luebbert Prize, and the Daniel Lerner Prize. He has also won research grants, among others, from the Ford Foundation, Social Science Research Council, U.S. Institute of Peace, Open Society Foundation and the Indian Council of Social Science Research.
His research and teaching cover three areas: ethnicity and nationalism, political economy of development and South Asian Politics and political economy. His academic papers have appeared in World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Politics, Daedalus, Journal of Development Studies, World Development, Journal of Asian Studies, Journal of Democracy, Journal of East Asian Studies, Foreign Affairs and Economic and Political Weekly. In addition to professional journals, he also contributes guest columns to newspapers and magazines and is a contributing editor for the Indian Express.
Read his full biography: https://home.watson.brown.edu/people/faculty/watson-faculty/ashutosh-varshney
Rohit Lamba
Assistant Professor of Economics, Cornell
- Bio
Rohit Lamba is an assistant professor of economics at Pennsylvania State University and a visiting assistant professor of economics at New York University Abu Dhabi. He received a PhD in economics from Princeton University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge. He publishes regularly in leading academic journals and newspapers. He has also worked as an economist at the office of the chief economic adviser to the Government of India.
Read his full biography: