Welcome to my website!

I am a health economist working on health policy in lower-income countries, particularly India. My research focuses on health care markets and the role of the private sector, socioeconomic and gender inequality in health, and health policy design. One of my papers uses quasi-experimental methods to show how strategic behavior by private hospitals undermines the effectiveness of a government health insurance program covering 46 million low-income people in India. In other work, I show that females are substantially less likely to benefit from highly subsidized hospital care than males. Building on these findings, I am starting new work on ways to encourage female usage of health benefits and monitoring strategies to improve hospital compliance. 

My paper won the International Health Economics Association (IHEA) 2021 Adam Wagstaff Award for outstanding research on the economics of healthcare financing in lower income countries. My research has been supported by grants from Harvard University, the Weiss Family Fund, and the Jameel Poverty Action Lab (JPAL). It has been covered by media and policy outlets in India including the BBCIGC-Ideas for India, ADB-Development AsiaIndiaSpend, Mint, The New Indian Express, and The Telegraph. It has also been cited in national policy documents, including the Consultation Paper on Provider Payment Rates and Pricing Under PMJAY issued by the Indian National Health Authority in 2022. You can listen to me discuss my research on the Ideas of India podcast here

I am an Assistant Professor of Health Economics at University College London (UCL), an affiliate of the UCL Centre for Global Health Economics, and an invited researcher at J-PAL South Asia. I completed a doctorate in Global Health and Economics at the Department of Global Health at Harvard University in May 2019, a Master of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2014, the Asia Health Policy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Stanford University in 2022, and a doctoral fellowship at the Center for Global Development in 2018. Previously, I worked on impact evaluations of health programs in India and on the implementation of HIV programs across several countries in sub-Saharan Africa. I spent my early years in Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai...but most of my childhood was spent in Mussoorie, a hill-station in the Himalayan foothills.