Vinayak Nambiar

Associate Director
Applied research

Vinayak Nambiar has pursued research and implemented projects related to environmental health in resource-poor settings in India and the Maldives. He has been an Anant Fellow for Climate Action. He has a MSc Public Health specialising in environmental health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, a MSc Biomedical Engineering from Imperial College London, and B.Engg. Mechanical Engineering from The University of Nottingham.

Priyanka Agarwal

Analyst

Priyanka specialises in issues related to urban management, data modeling, and finance. She holds a Masters' degree in Management Studies from CEPT University, India.

Faraz Kazi

Analyst

Faraz Kazi specializes in the field of environmental engineering and has a Master's degree in the subject. He is interested in all things related to sustainability and life cycle assessments of products and services.

Rhea Mukerjee

Fellow

Rhea Mukerjee has a decade of experience working across organisations that include the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development and E3G in France, and Tata Consultancy Services in India. Rhea is a self-confessed hoarder of house plants, a yoga enthusiast and a strong believer of the fact that e-books can never replace real books. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Delhi and a master’s in public affairs from Sciences Po, Paris, where she studied environmental policy.

Joseph Rajini Asir

Creative Director

Joseph Rajini Asir is a visual artist and communications designer specialising in photography and illustration. He has over ten years of experience in the various  fields of project management, photography, branding and visualisation across large and small organisations such as Amazon.com, Buzzfeed, The Ladies Compartment etc. Before Sustain Labs, he worked with the external communications department at Anant National University where he also taught courses on photography, light and visual journaling. He is currently the creative director at Sustain Labs and is responsible for designing both internal and external communication materials along with conceptualising and visualising ideas for in house research and development.
Beyond creative direction, he is engaged in researching about setting up spaces and engagements that enable free thought and self reflective engagements. He has a post graduate degree in photography from National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, India and a bachelors degree in commerce from Loyola College, Chennai, India.

Dr. Priya Rajagopalan

Director of Research

Dr. Priya Rajagopalan, PhD, has more than 20 years of experience teaching economics, public policy, quantitative methods, and marketing at Purdue University, Krannert School of Management. She has received the highest honor from Purdue University for the undergraduate excellence in teaching. Prior to arriving at Purdue, Priya lectured at Pomona College and was also the Assistant to the President of Williams College. In 2014, she joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Industry Relations as a business solutions director to support the recruitment, curriculum development, and mentorship for new businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs at Nebraska Innovation Campus. Priya’s strongest contribution to UNL was establishing partnerships with government agencies and companies and acquiring the prestigious Association of Public Land Grant University designation (APLU). She received her BA in Economics from the University of Madras and MA and PhD in Economics from Wayne State University, Michigan. She currently serves as a team member for UNL human trafficking and migration initiative.

Sandeep Kanda

Senior Expert
Carbon Markets & Corporate Sustainability

Sandeep is currently working as a Consultant at the World Bank. He has over 17 years of professional experience working with consultancies, auditing firms, NGOs and manufacturing industries. He has worked on various areas of energy and environmental management, related to policies, capacity building, climate change adaptation and mitigation projects and programmes, sustainability, auditing and product development. Sandeep has been involved in several nationally appropriate mitigation actions related work as international expert and collaborated on performing policy analysis and providing recommendations based on marginal abatement cost analysis. He has worked on the monitoring, reporting and verification aspects for emission reductions, co-benefits and support. Sandeep has been involved in various capacities in the development and assessment of more than climate change mitigation projects and programmes of activities worldwide.

Alya Tapia

Senior Manager
CEO's Foresight Team

Alya has a masters degree in environmental technology from Imperial College, UK, and an undergraduate degree in political science from Duke University, USA. Her specialization lies in the intersection of policy, business, environmental change. Her research interests cover waste, plastic pollution, and mangrove conservation in India. 

Dr. Sweety Pandey

Associate Director
Research and Policy Advisory 

Dr. Sweety Pandey is an economist with a specialization in energy and environmental economics. She led the Inaugural edition of the State Energy & Climate Index of NITI Aayog – where she conceptualized, built consensus amongst central energy ministries, and finalized the rankings of Indian states in their energy and environmental performance. She was also part of the core team at NITI Aayog which supported India’s ambitious declarations in COP26 in Glasgow. She also represented NITI Aayog in the National “Sustainable Finance Framework Committee” – which is drafting India’s first green taxonomy.

Before NITI Aayog – Dr. Pandey had brief stints with NIRD – National Institute for Rural Development and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) in various capacities. She was also an Assistant Professor at the Central University of Rajasthan. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Banaras Hindu University. Her research interest covers environment-growth nexus, climate change, and energy policy.

 

Praanjal Agarwal

Associate Director
Innovation for Impact

Praanjal has earlier worked at Reliance Industries Limited and the National Innovation Foundation-India (Government of India), where he gained diverse and extensive experience in clean energy, IPR, policy research and grassroots innovations. He specialises in the field of core Biotechnology with a Masters in the subject from Manipal University and in Business Sustainability for which he has earned a MBA from TERI School of Advanced Studies. He is a wildlife lover, cartoon enthusiast, ardent photographer, sustainable traveler and a gastronome.

Dr. Gireesh Shrimali

Senior Fellow

Dr. Gireesh Shrimali is a Research Scholar at Stanford University. He is also a visiting  scholar at the Center for Climate Finance and Investment at Imperial College as well as  the Singapore Green Finance Center at Singapore Management University. Previously, he  was the Director of Climate Policy Initiative’s India Program, and a Research Fellow at  the Sustainable Finance Initiative as well as the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy  and Finance at Stanford University. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University,  Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Indian School of Business, and Indian  Institute of Management. 

His research focus is on renewable energy finance and policy, on the catalytic role of  finance in getting to the 2C climate target, and on pathways for provision of low-cost,  long-term capital for clean energy transition. His work has included topics such as  analysis of India’s renewable policies, the impact of federal and state policy on the  development and deployment of renewable energy in the USA, and business models for  off-grid energy in developing countries. He is also focusing on ESG issues, such as  climate financial risk measurement and management, strategies for net zero transitions,  and transition bonds as well as Scope 3 emissions.  

He holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from the University of Minnesota,  Minneapolis, and a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. Prior to  his academic/research career, he has over nine years of industry experience designing  high-speed networking and computing systems.

Erica Dorr

Senior fellow

Erica Dorr started her academic career at the University of Berkeley (United States) where she graduated in ecology and environmental biology. She then continued her studies at the University of Paris Saclay with a master’s in climate, land use and ecosystem services. She is interested in the development of food systems that are more environmentally sustainable and fairer from a social point of view. She is currently a doctoral student at AgroParisTech and is working on the environmental impacts of urban agriculture and the development of a simplified assessment tool. As part of her doctoral project, she uses the life-cycle assessment method. Her research interests also cover sustainability sciences, urban ecology and industrial ecology.

Anouska Mohapatra

Design Intern

Anouska Mohapatra is an undergraduate student specialising in product design at the School of Design at Anant National University. She is skilled in graphic design, publication design, product design, and illustration. She enjoys problem solving and conceptualising complex ideas into simplified visuals.

Noel Aby Philip

Design Intern

Noel Aby Philip is currently pursuing his undergraduate degree in interaction design. He is enthusiastic about user interface, experience and service design.

Siva Sai

Associate Director
Design

Siva Sai Jeevanantham is a graduate of Photography Design from the National Institute of Design, India. He was also a student of English journalism at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. Siva Sai started his photography practice in 2012, during which time he has explored different mediums of image-making, including alternative photography practices, archives, digital image-making.