Dr. Niranjan Saggurti, PhD, a demographer, statistician and public health researcher with more than 20 years of experience in program and policy oriented research and evaluations with a special focus on sexual and reproductive health in India. Dr. Saggurti currently provides technical and strategic oversight to Council’s research, evaluation and implementation science work. Prior to this, Dr. Saggurti worked as Senior Program Officer with the Measurement, Learning and Evaluation team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Currently, he is on several core committees of the Indian government, including India FP2020, Ending PMTCT, RMNCAH Coalition and provides technical advisory to a number of research-based NGOs in New Delhi. Dr. Saggurti has published more than 150 papers in peer-reviewed journals and has implemented numerous interventions testing their efficacy and sustainability.

Anil Paul, a management graduate, is a result-oriented, seasoned corporate strategist and a management professional. Paul has held senior management positions for over 30 years in the public and non-profit sectors. In addition to his board responsibilities, he serves as Director of Administration, Finance & Human Resources with Population Council, India. He has led the operations of Population Council for over two decades and has provided leadership during major organizational changes and restructuring at the local level.

Tony Dutson, a business management graduate, is a result-oriented executive, qualified global accountant and a management professional. Dutson has held senior management positions in finance, business development and operations for over 30 years in the international public and non-profit sectors. In addition to his board responsibilities, he serves as Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the Population Council Inc (group) in the United States. He has led the global Corporate Finance and Administrative division of Population Council group for the last two years and has provided leadership during a business transformation, an acquisition and the development of a new strategic plan for the organization.

Dr. Arabinda Mishra, PhD, is a trained economist with over 25 years of experience in research, teaching/training, and academic administration in the field of sustainable development, livelihoods, adaptation, and resilience building. Dr. Mishra has served in leadership role across multiple institutions of repute such as International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), The Energy Resource Institute (TERI), and Centre for Multi-disciplinary Development Research (CMDR). At ICIMOD, as a theme leader, he was leading research and implementation of multi-country projects on mountain livelihoods and resilience-building solutions. Before joining ICIMOD in June 2015, he was Dean of the Faculty of Policy and Planning, TERI University (2005-2015) and had the concurrent responsibility of Director, Earth Science and Climate Change Division in The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) during 2008?2013 at New Delhi, India. At TERI, he was leading TERI’s engagement with the Government of India as well as a number of State governments in the preparation of action plans on climate change. As the project leader of the Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation Study in South Asia (ESPASSA), he was involved in an international collaboration of scientists from various disciplines that investigated the links between ecosystems and poverty in South Asia to identify ways in which the poor are dependent on the services provided by ecosystems in the region. He has acted as the lead researcher in an IDPAD (Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development)-funded study on common property water resources in rural India that brought out key insights regarding the functioning of water markets and community management institutions. He was also a Member, Working Group on Management of Natural Resources and Rainfed Farming, and Chairperson of Sub-Group V on Climate Change Mainstreaming, 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), set up by the Planning Commission, Govt of India.

Publications

Maharjan A, S Adhikari, R Ahmad, U Ahmad, Z Ali, S Bajracharya, J Baniya, S Bhattarai, A Gautam, E Gilmore, H M Ko, N Myat, T Myint, P S Mahapatra, A Mishra, C Singh (2022): Air pollution exposure and its impacts on everyday life and livelihoods of vulnerable urban populations in South Asia  Environ. Res. Commun. 4 071002  

Maharjan A. , S Tuladhar , A Hussain , A Mishra , S Bhadwal , S Ishaq , B A Saeed , I Sachdeva , B Ahmad , J Ferdous & S M T Hassan (2021): Can labour migration help households adapt to climate change? Evidence from four river basins in South Asia, Climate and Development   

Rao N., A Mishra, A Prakash, C Singh, A Qaisrani, P Poonacha, K Vincent & C Bedelian (2019): A qualitative comparative analysis of women’s agency and adaptive capacity in climate change hotspots in Asia and Africa, Nature Climate Change, Vol. 9, 964-971  

Mishra A. et al. (2019) Adaptation to Climate Change in the Hindu Kush Himalaya: Stronger Action Urgently Needed. In: Wester P., Mishra A., Mukherji A., Shrestha A. (eds) The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. Springer, Cham. DOI  

Banerjee S., R Black, A Mishra & D Kniveton (2019), Assessing vulnerability of remittance?recipient and nonrecipient households in rural communities affected by extreme weather events: Case studies from South?West China and North?East India, Population, Space and Place, Wiley.  

Dr Avishek Hazra is a monitoring and evaluation specialist with about two decades of research experience in clinical as well as socio-behavioral studies focusing on issues around reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, nutrition, sanitation, women’s empowerment and mHealth. Over the years he has been leading multi-dimensional large evaluation projects on community mobilization through women’s self-help groups, constituted mostly with poor and socially disadvantageous segment of the society. He led a multi-country study to document the learnings and best practices around COVID-19 vaccination from India and 10 other countries. He was a lead researcher in a multi-country study on overseas labor migration, commercial sexual exploitation, and construction industry. In an Indo-US collaborative multi-centre phase-3 clinical trial on safety and efficacy of a novel user-controlled contraceptive vaginal ring in India, as a study coordinator, he led the data management part. Currently, Dr Hazra is leading a unique study that uses implementation science approach to document the effectiveness of interventions supporting women micro-entrepreneurs in 10 states of India. He led a systematic review on cash transfers and contraception commissioned by the World Health Organization, and a systematic review on community animal health worker models in South Asia. Dr Hazra has published more than 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals and edited books. He has been providing peer review support to many international journals. He is a member of many professional academic forums, global task forces, and served as a technical advisor to the World Health Organization. Dr Hazra holds a MSc in Statistics, and MPhil and PhD in Population Studies.

Dr. Nizamuddin Khan has a PhD in population studies from International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai and two Master’s degrees in Statistics with Computer Programming, and Population Studies (MPS). His 20+ years of experience includes health program evaluations, operations research design, development of M&E systems for health interventions, and quantitative data analysis using SPSS and STATA. He has several years of experience coordinating the large-scale surveys, initially with the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and District Level Household Surveys (DLHS), and recently leading the field implementation of Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) in India. He has several publications to his credit. He also worked with the World Bank, IIPS, Futures Group International in the past leading the implementation of research studies in the field.

Publications

Jolivet, R. R., Gausman, J., Adanu, R., Bandoh, D., Belizan, M., Berrueta, M. Chakraborty S., Kenu E., Khan N., … & Langer, A. (2022). Multisite, mixed methods study to validate 10 maternal health system and policy indicators in Argentina, Ghana and India: a research protocol. BMJ open, 12(1), e049685.

Sachdev, H. S., Porwal, A., Acharya, R., Ashraf, S., Ramesh, S., Khan, N., … & Sarna, A. (2021). Haemoglobin thresholds to define anaemia in a national sample of healthy children and adolescents aged 1–19 years in India: a population-based study. The Lancet Global Health, 9(6), e822-e831.

Sarna, A., Porwal, A., Ramesh, S., Agrawal, P. K., Acharya, R., Johnston, R., N. Khan,… & Saxena, R. (2020). Characterisation of the types of anaemia prevalent among children and adolescents aged 1–19 years in India: a population-based study. The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, 4(7), 515-525.

Khan, N., & Saggurti, N. (2020). Socioeconomic inequality trends in childhood vaccination coverage in India: findings from multiple rounds of National Family Health Survey. Vaccine, 38(25), 4088-4103.

Khan, N., Mozumdar, A., & Kaur, S. (2020). Determinants of low birth weight in India: An investigation from the National Family Health Survey. American Journal of Human Biology, 32(3), e23355.

Dr. Samiksha Singh is Director Health Services Research. She is an epidemiologist and a fervent public health specialist with 14+ years of experience in maternal and neo-natal health, early childhood development, infections, HIV, health systems and quality improvement in India.

She has led evaluations of complex public health programs and health systems research. They evaluated Dakshata and SCSL programs for quality improvement in clinical practice in labour rooms and newborn care units across public and private hospitals. Her other related research includes evaluation of obstetric referral systems, maternal and peri-natal death reviews, peri-conception health care and utilization of maternal and child health services. Samiksha has 10+ years of direct engagement with governments, and other partners for framing policy, implementing programs, and building collaborations for ending preventable maternal mortality.

Prior to joining the Council, Samiksha worked with PHFI. She led the ‘Advanced Collaboration for Early Childhood Development and Empowerment’ that brings experts from all over the country for policy formulation, program strategies, capacity building, and research inclusive of children with special needs. The collaborative supported state of Telangana in developing a road map for comprehensive ECD program, followed by a pilot implementation of an integrated community-based intervention for ECD in partnership between H&FW, WDCW, and Panchayati Raj. Her work with National Neonatology Forum included capacity building of Special Newborn Care Units in 4 states and SNCU-DEIC linkages for follow-ups.

Samiksha holds a PhD in Epidemiology and Population Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; an MD in Community Medicine from University College of Medical Sciences, and MBBS from Lady Hardinge Medical College from Delhi University. She has published 30+ articles in peer-reviewed journals and she also serves as an academic editor for Plos One and reviewer to several esteemed journals.

Publication

Singh S, Kannuri NK, Mishra A, Gaikwad L, Shukla R, Tyagi M, Chamarthy S. Effect of WHO-SCC based intra-department mentoring program on quality of intrapartum care in public sector secondary hospitals in Andhra Pradesh, India: Pre-post mixed methods evaluation. Plos Global Public Health. 2022;2(8): e0000530. DOI:10.1371/journal.pgph.0000530

Zamboni K, Singh S, Tyagi M, Hill Z, Hanson C, Schellenberg J. Effect of collaborative quality improvement on stillbirths, neonatal mortality and newborn care practices in hospitals of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India: evidence from a quasi-experimental mixed-methods study. Implementation Science. 2021 January;16:4.DOI:10.1186/s13012-020-01058-z

Hanson C, Zamboni K, Prabhakar V, Sudke A, Shukla R, Tyagi M, Singh S, Schellenberg J. Evaluation of the Safe Care, Saving Lives (SCSL) Quality Improvement collaborative for neonatal health in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, India: a study protocol. Glob Health Action. 2019;12(1):1581466. DOI:10.1080/16549716.2019.1581466.

Singh S, Doyle P, Campbell OM, Murthy GVS. Management and referral of high-risk women and women with complications during the antenatal period: Knowledge, attitude and practices survey of providers in rural public healthcare in two states of India. Reproductive Health. 2019 July 10;16(1):100. DOI:10.1186/s12978-019-0765-y

Singh S, Doyle P, Campbell OM, Rao GVR, Murthy GVS. Inter-facility transfer of pregnant women using publicly-funded emergency call-centre based ambulance services: a cross-sectional analysis of service logs from five states in India. BMJ open. 2017 Jun 9;7(6):e015077. DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-015077

Archana has a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from University of Delhi and cleared her Chartered Accountancy (Intermediate). She has more than six years of experience in Finance & Accounting, handling matters related to taxation (GST and income tax), financial audits, and various aspects of financial management.

Dr. Abhishek Kumar is demographer and public health researcher whose areas of interest are adolescents sexual and reproductive health, fertility and family planning, maternal healthcare utilization, childhood nutrition and mortality, abortion & post-abortion contraceptive use, and migration and family planning. Abhishek is currently working on several research areas, with a focus on exploring the role of the private sector in family planning services, generating evidence on cross cutting issues on contraceptive use, and understanding adolescents’ vulnerability in sexual and reproductive health. His research work expands across all the states of India, with a special focus on Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. Abhishek has authored more than 30 scientific manuscripts in peer reviewed international journals and presented over 40 research papers in prestigious international conferences in the field of demography and public health including Population Association of America (PAA), International Union for Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP). Abhishek has been a participant of the Young Scientist Summer Program (YSSP) conducted by the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Vienna, Austria and Policy Communication Fellow at Population Reference Bureau, Washington DC, USA. He holds a PhD in demography from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India.

Publications

Shukla A, Acharya R, Kumar A, Mozumdar A, Aruldas K, Saggurti N. Client- provider interaction: Understanding client’s experience with family planning service providers through mystery client approach in India. (2020). Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. 28(1):1822492.

Kumar A, Jain AK, Ram F, Acharya R, Shukla A, Mozumdar A, Saggurti N. Health workers’ outreach and intention to use contraceptives among married women in India. (2020). BMC Public Health. 20(1):1041

Kumar A, Gautam A, Dey A, Saith R, Uttamacharya, Achyut P, Gautam V, Agarwal D, Chakraverty A, Mozumdar A, Aruldas K, Verma R, Nanda P, Krishnan S, Saggurti N. Infection prevention preparedness and practices for female sterilization services within primary care facilities in Northern India. (2020). BMC Health

Kumar A, Muttarak R, Bordone V. Like mother(-in-law) like daughter? Influence of the older generation’s fertility behaviours on women’s desired family size in Bihar, India. (2015). Europian Journal of Population. 32(5):629–660.

Kumar A, Kumari D, Singh A. Increasing socioeconomic inequality in childhood undernutrition in urban India: Trends between 1992-93, 1998-99, and 2005-06. (2014). Health Policy and Planning. 30(8):1003-1016.

Ananya MSW, is a social researcher with nearly eight years of experience in qualitative research, capacity building, and storytelling. She has worked on a range of issues including education, food security, economic collectives, and menstrual health and hygiene. During her William J. Clinton Fellowship 2018-19 with public middle schools in rural Bihar, she applied storytelling techniques to identify in-depth information on sanitation and menstrual health from adolescent girls. Working with Adivasis – with special attention to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) communities in Jharkhand, she has explicated her evidence-based policy advocacy domain. She is trained in Scientific Research Writing and in Gender Equity for Inclusive design.

Anchal Purbey has more than four years of relevant experience in health and nutrition, largely acute malnutrition, food supplementation, and Tuberculosis (TB).  She pursued her M. Tech (Master’s in Technology and Development) from Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA), IIT Bombay through DAAD scholarship and holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Tribhuvan University. Her Masters thesis work was on “Food product Development for moderate acute malnourished children”. She was the National Winner, India for the Rio+23 Program, World Humanitarian Summit 2016. She also received one year UNICEF fellowship post her M Tech to work on the research protocol pertaining to severe acute malnutrition at UNICEF, New Delhi Office. She has earlier worked with Coalition for Food and Nutrition Security (CFNS) as a Strategic Engagement and Communication Manager and with Society for Health Allied and Research Education (SHARE) India as a Data Analyst. She has presented her research work at various national and international forums, such as the International Health Congress, Oxford, the Geneva Health Forum and at the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Centenary Conference. She has also served as one of the panelists for the event on “War on Wasting, the scourge of malnutrition in India”, December 2019.  Her areas of interest include research, data analytics and visualization, as well as training and capacity building. She is also the member of Pediatric and Adolescent Nutrition Society (IAP Subspeciality Chapter on Nutrition) and Nutrition Group at CTARA, IIT Bombay.  

Dr. Basant Kumar Panda is a statistician and demographer with extensive experience in data management and analysis. Prior to joining Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd. as a Technical Specialist, he was a research consultant at Population Council. He has a PhD in population studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai and master’s degrees in statistics from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. He is well versed in the use of statistical software like STATA and SPSS and has worked on various large-scale data sets. He has authored/co-authored 20 articles in peer-reviewed international/national journals and attended various international conferences in India and abroad. His areas of interest are ageing, health financing and maternal and child health in the Indian context.

Publications

Panda B.K. and Mohanty S.K. (2018). Progress and Prospects of Health Related SDGs in India. Journal of Biosocial Science, 51(3):335-352

Mohanty, S. K., Panda, B. K., Khan, P. K., & Behera, P. (2019). Out-of-pocket expenditure and correlates of caesarean births in public and private health centers in India. Social Science & Medicine. 245 45-57.

Panda, B.K., Kumar, G. & Awasthi, A. District level inequality in reproductive, maternal, neonatal and child health coverage in India. BMC Public Health 20, 58 (2020)

Panda,B.K. , & Mishra, U.S. (2021). Unnatural death in India. Journal of Biosocial Science,1-12.

Panda, B. K. Ram F., Singh G. Sagruti N., (2021). Intention to use Contraception among women in unmet need and not in unmet need in India., Demography India, 49(2), 23-34

Bishwajit is a qualified professional with demonstrated leadership in the development sector for 12 years. He is a management and analytics professional working in the domain of Public Health. He has diverse  experience in the field of  planning, designing, leading, coordinating, liasoning and implementation for maternal and child health programs across the states of Jharkhand and Bihar.

Deepak has more than six years of professional experience in the social development sector having worked with Govt. departments, corporate clients, and NGO partners.

His previous role was as an Officer – Strategic Partnerships & Grants for American India Foundation. Deepak holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication and Master’s in Corporate Social Responsibility.

Gaurav is a Data Scientist with 1.5+ years of experience in building data-intensive applications, overcoming complex architectural design and scalability issues in the industry. Proficient in predictive modelling, data processing, natural language processing and data mining algorithms, as well as scripting languages including Python, Javascript and C++ with OOPS design principles. Gaurav is capable of creating, developing, testing and deploying highly adaptive diverse services to translate business and functional qualifications into substantial deliverables.

Komal Saxena is a multifaceted professional with a variety of experience across office administration and project management responsibilities. She works well in high-pressure settings with minimal supervision in both leadership and team roles and has proven office and personnel management skills, with equal ability in lead and support roles. She holds a master’s degree in Business Administration (Specialization in Human Resources) from the Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune, India. She possesses more than eighteen years of work experience in the development sector handling administration, finance, and human resources.  Her previous experience has been with UNICEF, Population Council, and Tetra Tech Inc. (Forest-Plus 2.0 USAID-funded project).

Latika is a management professional having more than 16 years of experience in HR domain. She has experience in Talent management, HR operations, digital transformation of HR processes and performance management. She has worked in various sectors Staffing, Education ,Travel & Events and pharmaceutical. She completed her master’s degree in Human Resources Managment from Institute of Marketing & Management (IMM), Delhi and has been working in Human Resources field. Prior to joining PC Consulting, she was associated with Innova ESI Pvt Ltd. – a US based technology consulting firm.

Monica is a development professional and policy researcher working on community and health-systems based programmes for women’s and girl’s health, nutrition and empowerment outcomes. She has over six years of experience in evidence generation, program management and implementation around women’s groups in India. She has worked with government, donor agencies and non-profit organizations on health, nutrition and gender community-led participatory interventions, public health systems, social inclusion, local governance and migration, from grassroots to national-level across the various Indian States, with tribal, rural and urban communities. She has experience in working on large-scale multi-sector impact evaluation on nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-intensive interventions for women and girls, handling multi-state partnerships and providing technical assistance to government systems at national, state and district levels. She has designed and tested gender transformative interventions, liaised with government stakeholders for upscaling of evidence-based interventions and developed and strengthened monitoring and evaluation systems for programmes. She is skilled in designing and conducting process evaluations, formative research, qualitative and quantitative research. She has research publications on women’s groups, health, nutrition, mental health and gender.

Prior to joining PC Consulting, she worked as Consultant with the Population Council Institute in a UNICEF-ROSA supported study toward documenting the pathways and potential of using women’s groups and movements for advancing women and girls nutrition in South Asia. Prior to that, she worked as a Senior Consultant with ROSHNI-Centre of Women Collectives led Social Action, Lady Irwin College, New Delhi, a TSU to DAY-NRLM, Ministry of Rural Development, supported by UNICEF India. She has also worked with The India Nutrition Initiative, Tata Trusts to effectively roll out POSHAN Abhiyaan under the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India and Rajiv Gandhi Mahila Vikas Pariyojana, an NGO working on Self-help Groups’ initiatives in Uttar Pradesh, India. She holds a Masters’ Degree in Development Policy, Planning & Practice from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India (Tuljapur Campus) and was also awarded the Institute’s Gold Medal. Her Masters’ dissertation examined the role of Delhi’s construction workers’ welfare board and trade unions in achieving social security. Her interest areas include women’s groups, public health systems, nutrition, gender, SRHR, women and adolescent girls’ empowerment and financing.

Publications:  

Shrivastav M., Vasudeva S., Gulati T., Sahu B., Saraswat A., Abraham N.R., et al. (2022) The mental health of adolescent girls from a tribal region of Central Rural India during the COVID-19 pandemic – A cross-sectional study to determine the role of gender disadvantage. J Neurosci Rural Pract;13:669-75. DOI: 10.25259/JNRP-2022-2-3 

Raghavan, A., Satyanarayana, V.A., Fisher, J., Ganjekar, S., Shrivastav, M., Anand, S., Sethi, V., Chandra, P.S. (2022) Gender Transformative Interventions for Perinatal Mental Health in Low and Middle Income Countries—A Scoping Review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health, 19, 12357. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912357 

Shrivastav, M., Saraswat, A., Abraham, N., Reshmi, R. S., Anand, S., Purty, A., Xaxa, R. S., Minj, J., Mohapatra, B., & Sethi, V. (2021). Early lessons from Swabhimaan, a multi-sector integrated health and nutrition programme for women and girls in India (Field Exchange 65). ENN Online. https://www.ennonline.net/fex/65/healthnutritionprogrammewomenindia 

Namrata is the State Program Manager, Assam for Population Council Consulting Pvt Ltd. She coordinates and manages the maternal health program in Assam, which primarily focuses on using innovative technology and support women through their entire ANC and PNC journey. In this role, she is responsible for program planning, implementation, monitoring, and liaisoning with coalition partners and the state NHM. Namrata is a postgraduate in Sociology. She has been working in the development sector for more than a decade and has a rich background of experience and knowledge of working in this sector, especially in program management. Her expertise are in the areas of health (Reproductive Sexual Health and Rights), family planning, youth development and action, HIV/AIDS and life skills. She has been involved in strategic designing of programs, implementation of programs, along with monitoring & evaluation. Besides this, she has developed training materials on sexuality and disability. She has conducted trainings with women and children, youth with disability and SSA teachers on reproductive health and hygiene. Namrata has facilitated several training sessions on menstrual health and hygiene with young girls and boys in various field locations in the North-East and the slums of Dharavi in Mumbai. She has been associated with reputed organisations such as North-East Network, Naz Foundation, Sightsavers, Foundation for Social Transformation, and Ipas Development Foundation.

Neelanjana Pandey is a Senior Program Manager at PopulationCouncil Consulting Pvt. Ltd., India. She coordinates and manages research programmes related to adolescents’ lives, particularly focusing on their education, work participation, marriage, and sexual and reproductive health issues. Pandey specializes in population sciences and statistics and has been a key contributor to designing experimental and quantitative studies. In this role, she coordinates the execution of studies undertaken and monitors progress, conducts complex quantitative data analyses, disseminates findings at various forums and liaisons with stakeholders. She is currently leading an evaluation of a Gender Integration Pilot program in a government-supported women’s collective system in Bihar, India. She is also leading the India study site as part of a multi-country evaluation of the Girl First Fund program. At Population Council, she contributed to a longitudinal study of adolescents aged 10–19 years in the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (UDAYA: Understanding Lives of Adolescent and Young Adults). Before joining the Council, Pandey was a monitoring and evaluation consultant at UNICEF, India, where she implemented and monitored a large-scale rapid survey on children across all states of India.

She has presented more than 10 scientific papers internationally and is the author of more than 18 peer-reviewed papers, technical reports, policy briefs and book chapters.

Pandey holds an MA in statistics from Banaras Hindu University and a PhD in population studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai.

Publications

GIRL Center Research Brief

K.G. Santhya, R. A., Neelanjana Pandey, Ashish Kumar Gupta, Shilpi Rampal, Santosh Kumar Singh, A.J. Francis Zavier (2017). “Executive Summary: Understanding the lives of adolescents and young adults (UDAYA) in Uttar Pradesh, India (2015–16).”

Melnikas, A.J., G. Saul, M. Chau, N. Pandey, J. Mkandawire, M. Gueye, A. Diarra, and S. Amin. 2021. “More Than Brides Alliance: Endline Evaluation Report.” New York: Population Council

Neelanjana Pandey, K. S., Andrea J. Melnikas (2019). “Examining early marriage in India: Qualitative findings.”

Rajib Acharya, M. G., Thoai Ngo, Neelanjana Pandey, Sangram Kishor Patel, Jessie Pinchoff, Shilpi Rampal, Niranjan Saggurti, K.G. Santhya, Corinne White, A.J. Francis Zavier (2020). “COVID-19-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices among adolescents and young people in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, India: Study description.”

Sapna Desai, Neelanjana Pandey. (2017). “Ensuring adolescents in Uttar Pradesh stay—and learn—in school.”

Pankaj has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from Panjab University and has also cleared his CA (Intermediate). He has more than 9 years of experience in areas of Finance & Accounting in handling matters related to taxation (GST and income tax), financial audits and various aspects of financial management.

Pratik has a Bachelor’s degree in commerce from University of Kolkata and a Chartered Accountant (batch 2023).  He has experience in financial statements review, statutory & tax audit, and Income tax return filling.

Punit Mishra is a statistician, demographer, and RMLE expert with more than 14 years of expert level knowledge and experience in designing and managing research and M&E frameworks of several donor funded projects. Punit has been building and managing research network in form of partnerships with academic and research institutions across the country to localize evidence and expanding PCC’s initiatives. He is currently leading multiple research projects such as Research and Analyses for Scientific Transformation and Advancement (RASTA, USAID), Northeast India Health & Nutrition Research project (USAID), Evidence Building on Tribal Population (Piramal Foundation and Govt of India), and Diet Diversity and Undernutrition (Govt of Mizoram, India).

Prior to joining PCC, Punit served as the Lead-Research, Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation (RMLE) at Piramal Foundation, where he led the monitoring, evaluation and research for three verticals (Health, Education, Water) at the Foundation. He handled the RMLE for Aspirational Districts Collaborative (ADC) across 112 districts including the Government of India’s “Transformation of Aspirational Districts” initiative with NITI Aayog for selected districts. He also led the research for Centre of Excellence (CoE) for knowledge management of tribal health and nutrition at Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Govt of India. Punit has worked at RTI International and Abt Associates on different evaluation projects funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). His experiences in these projects include working with clients in the National and State Governments, multi-lateral donors, and non-profit organizations across India and Africa. He has also served as an assistant professor of statistics at the University of Delhi, teaching courses on statistical inference and research methodology.

Punit has rich experience in establishing performance monitoring and review systems for monitoring and evaluation of results. He has designed and implemented several operations research, social and behavior change interventions, multi-round longitudinal studies, and analyzing large-scale data available in the public domain. He has also designed and conducted multi-round evaluation studies working with clients in the National and State Governments, multi-lateral donors, and non-profit organizations across India and Africa. Punit mentored a number of young researchers on RMLE, data analytics and data quality audits for government stakeholders, partners, and program teams. He is published extensively and disseminated his research findings at different scientific conferences globally.

Publications

Mishra, P., Hegde, S., Ram, U., Pradhan, M., Basu, T., Dogra, V. (2020). District Factsheets: Health and Nutrition Indicators for the Tribal and Non-Tribal Population, 2015-16: Compendium.

Mishra P, Ray Saraswati L, Baker M, Mishra A, Bhandari P, Rai A, Chandan A, Crockett M, Pelly L, Anthony J, Shetye M, Krotki K, Kraemer J. (2020). ‘Know-Can’ gap: gap between knowledge and skills related to childhood diarrhoea and pneumonia among frontline workers in rural Uttar Pradesh, India. Trop Med Int Health, 25(4):454-466. doi: 10.1111/tmi.13365. Epub 2020 Jan 18. PMID: 31863613.

Mishra, P. (2012). Institutional delivery in India. Intrastate variations in Uttar Pradesh: 1998–2008. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing.

Mishra, P. (2012). Poverty and public/private divide in institutional delivery care in India. In U.V. Somayajulu, G.K., Panda, R. Kar, P. Mishra, & Singh, K.K. (Eds.), Population, reproductive and child health: Perspectives and challenges (105–115). New Delhi, India: Serials Publications.

Radhika Dayal is a public health practitioner and qualitative researcher with a decade of research and management experience. She conducts multi-component mixed method evaluations that focus on issues like reducing child marriage and teenage pregnancy; increasing comprehensive sexuality education and increasing female employment in India. She has extensive experience in project management and is proficient in conducting qualitative studies, systematic reviews, and evidence synthesis on girls’ empowerment, gender-based violence, and adolescent sexual and reproductive health. She has experience in using different monitoring and evaluation approaches like conducting impact and process evaluation, and using participatory research methods like mystery clients and youth engagement.

Prior to joining the Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd., as Technical Specialist, Radhika worked with John Snow Inc. (JSI), India office and the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Radhika holds a Masters in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Epidemiology, Indian Institute of Public Health, Delhi, PHFI.

Publications

Dayal R, Gundi M (2022). Assessment of the quality of sexual and reproductive health services delivered to adolescents at Ujala clinics: A qualitative study in Rajasthan, India. PLoS ONE 17(1): e0261757.

Choudhry V, Dayal R, Pillai D, Kalokhe AS, Beier K, Patel V. (2018)  Child sexual abuse in India: A systematic review. PLoS One13(10).

Dayal R., Kalokhe, A. S., Choudhry, V., Pillai, D., Beier, K., & Patel, V. (2018)  Ethical and definitional considerations in research on child sexual violence in India. BMC Public Health.

Negandhi H, Negandhi P, Zodpey SP, Kulatilaka H, Dayal R, Hart LJ and Grewe M. (2017)  How Do Master of Public Health Programs Teach Monitoring and Evaluation? Front. Public Health 5:136.

Rottach E, Pappa S, Dayal R & Das M. (2017)  Deconstructing gender: evidence on how programmes address gender inequalities to improve health, Development in Practice, 27:2, 168-180.

Rifat Anjum, is a qualitative researcher with more than 4 years of experience in research and management. She has worked extensively in the areas of sexual and reproductive health. She has experience conducting qualitative studies, including development of tools, conducting in-depth interviews, analysing data, and conducting systematic reviews. She is well versed in applying different monitoring and evaluation methodologies, like process evaluation and conducting impact assessments for clinical trials. She has conducted in-depth interviews with different stakeholders, including ASHAs, pharmacists, and healthcare professionals, while working on a post medical contraceptive uptake project amongst women who have undergone medical abortion. She is currently working on the qualitative research aspect of a clinical trial RAPIDIRON in Karnataka and Jaipur.

Rifat has worked with the University Grants Commission, New Delhi, as Subject Expert for corporate social responsibility. She holds a PhD in Corporate Social Responsibility from the Department of Social Work from Jamia Millia Islamia and a master’s degree in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

Rimjhim Bajpai has experience working in the field of Sanitation, Worker Protection and Social Protection schemes for Migrants. She has more than 3 years of experience in research Monitoring and Evaluation and Data Analysis. Her interest area includes Spatial planning and data analytics. She has earned her bachelor’s degree (B.Plan) from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and her master’s degree specialised in Regional Planning (M.Plan) from School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi. She is currently pursuing her M.A. in Population Studies from International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS) and working on her Dissertation topic” Prevalence of Anaemia among Reproductive age women in Low- and Middle-income countries. Before joining Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd., she has worked as a research associate in the UNICEF-sponsored project at the National institute of urban affairs (NIUA) and as a Data Analyst at the Jansahas society of Development, New Delhi. Her hobbies include swimming and watching horror movies.

Shamayita Das, M.Sc. Nursing, is a registered nurse turned researcher with nearly a decade of experience in fields of maternal and child health with a higher focus on client experiences, quality of care, and provider competencies and behaviours. She has extensive experience in qualitative research methods, especially conducting ethnographic observations. She is currently involved as a specialist at the Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd. Prior to that, she was with Oxford Policy Management India Pvt. Ltd. as a research coordinator, working on Bihar Technical Support Program (BTSP) Phases I and II. Shamayita earned her master’s degree in nursing from the Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (IPGME &R), Kolkata, with a concentration in pediatric nursing. Her core research interests are perinatal and pediatric health, research ethics, and health system and policy research. She had been a clinical academician before she joined the development sector. Shamayita is also a member of the Trained Nurses Association of India (TNAI).

Sinjini is Postgraduate in MBA with specialization in Finance, having more than 14 years of qualitative professional experiences in the arena of Accounts, Administration & Financial Management of Projects, Grants in Not Profit Sectors. Her prime responsibilities are managing the accounting and finance systems for implemented projects, monitoring grants and budgets, and actual project management, audits etc.

Prior to joining Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd. as Manager, Grants & Finance, she worked with Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) India as Finance Officer; National Law University, Delhi (NLUD) as Finance and Administrative Coordinator in Project 39A, Fair Trial Fellowship Programme; and as Senior Finance Assistant with International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW) India.

Sohini Paul is a Senior Program Manager at Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Delhi. She is a development economist by training with more than 20 years of experience in public policy research. Her primary research interests include gender, health, food security, political economy, and empirical econometrics.  Currently, Sohini is working on costing and cost-effectiveness analysis of women’s groups, maternal and child health and nutrition, and health systems in the Indian context, conducting implementation research on the school-to-work transitions programs for adolescent girls.

As a member of the global Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups, Sohini works on costing and cost-effectiveness analyses of women’s groups, focusing on India’s National Rural Livelihoods Mission. She also co-leads a collaborative initiative to generate evidence on implementing school-based interventions to improve labour force participation and economic empowerment amongst young girls in Bihar.

In the past, Sohini co-led a program of work on Maternal, New-born and Child Health (MNCH) in India which aimed to deepen the knowledge of MNCH through in-depth analyses of various relevant data sets; support a new generation of MNCH researchers, and disseminate the knowledge generated.

Before joining the Council, Sohini worked as a fellow at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), one of India’s oldest think tanks. She has led evaluations of government welfare schemes, including food security programs. During the process, Sohini worked closely with governments of state and central government ministries in India. She served on technical advisory committees of the United Nations Food Program and Niti Ayog for evaluating food security programs in India.

Sohini was an ICCR Chair Professor at Norman Peterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Canada.

Sohini was a post-doctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada. She holds a PhD in Economics from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), India.

Dr. Sudeshna Maitra is an evaluation specialist. Prior to this, Dr. Maitra was a research associate at the National Institute of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Ministry of Rural Development, Hyderabad.

She is well versed with econometrics and other evaluation tools and is trained in handling large datasets. She completed her PhD in Economics from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2020. She also holds an M.Phil in economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her research domain includes gender economics, household behaviour and family economics, education, gender and nutrition, agriculture and rural development.

Surendra is a qualified professional with 20+ years of experience in the development sector. He has extensive experience in managing projects, preparing tools for qualitative and quantitative research, conducting research, implementing intervention activities and liaising with government and non-government organizations, CBOs and community stakeholders. Prior to joining the Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Surendra worked with the Population Council, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the International Institute for Population Sciences, and the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW). Surendra holds a master’s in social science from Dr. Rammanohar Lohia Avadh University, Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh.

Sushmita is working as a research analyst at Population Council Consulting Pvt. Ltd.. She holds a master’s degree in Development and Labor Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honors) degree in Economics from Indraprastha College for Women, Delhi University. Prior to joining the Council, she was a part of projects on social security schemes and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) at the Confederation of Indian Industry and National Skill Development Corporation. She also has entrepreneurial experience of running a food truck in NCR. She has keen intertest in classical dance and enjoys writing and exploring historical places.