Our People

Dinesh is co-founder and Managing Director of the Raah Health and Social Development Foundation. Drawing upon more than a decade of experience in the social sector and his personal experience of growing up in a village in rural Uttarakhand, Dinesh has a track record of building effective collaborative partnerships with academic institutions, NGOs, the Indian government and, most importantly, with individuals and communities at the grassroots. Dinesh has played a critical role in the success of the Tika Vaani project since 2012. Dinesh has a master’s degree in economics and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in economics, with a focus on public health interventions. His areas of interest include family planning, nutrition in pregnancy and early childhood, water, sanitation and hygiene, and immunization. To bring about sustainable change and enhance social justice, Dinesh believes that the community is the true bottom line.

Nitika is co-founder and Director of the Raah Health and Social Development Foundation. After graduating in Commerce from Delhi University, Nitika completed an MBA in International Business from the University of Bradford in the UK. Upon returning to India, she decided to devote herself to being a homemaker and raising her young family. Always committed to social causes such as teaching less literate adults in Todarpur Village in Delhi and supporting destitute girls in Jhandewalan, New Delhi, Nitika joined Raah to inspire her daughters, Anishka and Aavia, to seek the fulfilment that comes from giving to society. Nitika firmly believes that “Happiness cannot be pursued. It must ensue, as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a course greater than oneself.” Victor Frankl

Mira is Professor at the University of Montreal and Principal Scientist at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM). Mira studied economics, ethics and political philosophy at McGill University, and public health at Yale University. She has served as Consultant in the Department of Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health at the World Health Organization, and Independent Expert to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). She currently serves as Commissioner for the Lancet Commission on Hearing Loss and Chair of the Independent Evaluation Panel at the Global Fund. Mira’s research has appeared in high-impact journals such as the Lancet, the Lancet Global Health, BMC Medicine, and the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. Passionate about advancing global health and development, Mira has been leading field research in India since 2012. Her research focuses principally on equitable access to childhood vaccines globally and in India.

After a 40-year career in advertising and marketing, Rajeev has seen the potential of creating change through communication. He is now seeking to blend this knowledge with the disciplines of behaviour change and positive psychology, in order to create positive social impact. Rajeev started his career with Swire Group at Cathay Pacific Airways, post studying Economics and Law at the University of Cambridge. He then established multiple agency brands for McCann Worldgroup (part of Interpublic Group) (known as “MCN”) in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region, as CEO and Founding Equity Partner. The agencies included MRM, McCann Health, Promoseven 360 and DRAFT (now FCB), which produced work for over 150 blue chip client brands and won more than 100 international creative awards. Alongside being a Senior Advisor to MCN, Rajeev is pursuing Master’s programmes in behaviour change (at the London School of Economics) and positive psychology (at University of Pennsylvania), with a view to infuse these disciplines into communication to build positive social impact. Collecting art is a hobby, particularly works which portray a social narrative. His collection comprises 104 works from 53 artists across 16 countries, and may be found at Budhiraja.org

Prof. M. Ali Haider completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia and B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi (IIT-Delhi), India in 2013. He is a recipient of the ‘Bioenergy-Award for Cutting Edge Research’ Fellowship sponsored by the Indo–US Science and Technology Forum. Recently, he is featured as an ‘Emerging Investigator’ by the Editorial Board of Reaction Chemistry & Engineering. His research interests are focused on the development of renewable energy and chemicals and providing sustainable technological solutions to problems related to energy and climate change. He has received ‘Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam HPC Award for R & D in HPC Applications’ by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Intel. In addition, he is a recipient of the Amar Dye-Chem Award for ‘Excellence in Basic Research and Development in Chemical Engineering’ by the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers, DAE-BRNS Young Scientist Award, Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Award, Institution of Engineers (India) Young Engineers Award.  At IIT Delhi, his contributions in teaching and research have received numerous accolades such as ‘Industry Relevant Best PhD Thesis Supervision’, ‘Teaching Excellence Award’ and ‘Early Career Research Award’. Currently, he is serving as a member of Indian National Young Academy of Sciences to popularize science education at various forums in India.

Vinod is a Senior Lecturer in Microbial Technology and Biorefining at Cranfield University (CU) and also holds a Visiting Faculty position in the Centre for Rural Development and Technology and the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. Before joining CU, he was a Marie Curie Fellow at EPSRC/BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre at the University of Nottingham, UK.  Dr Kumar earned his M.Sc. (Chemistry) and PhD (Biochemical Engineering & Biotechnology) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology – Delhi (IIT Delhi). He graduated in B.Sc. (Hons) Chemistry from Hindu College, University of Delhi, India. He has research experience of 12 years post PhD and is actively involved in multidimensional projects aiming at the development of low-cost sustainable bioprocesses for metabolites production from renewable sources. The research vision and long-term ambition of Dr Kumar is to establish waste based biorefineries for not only generating wealth out of waste but also contributing to the national goal of zero carbon emission by 2030. He has 80+ publications in peer reviewed high-quality journals/publishers attracting a cumulative citation of ~1966 with an h-index ~20 and ResearchGate score of 37.95.

Subu is a Professor of Population Health and Geography at Harvard University, and chair of the Faculty Advisory Group for the Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University. He is a Primary Faculty in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, a Core Faculty of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, and a Faculty Affiliate of the Harvard Department of Sociology. He is also an Honorary Senior Fellow of the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog, Government of India and the PI of the Geographic Insights Lab. Subramanian was the Founding Director of Graduate Studies for the interdisciplinary PhD program in Population Health Sciences at Harvard. He received his under- and post-graduate training at the University of Delhi, and completed his PhD in geography at the University of Portsmouth. He has published over 750 articles, book chapters, and books in the broad field of population health and well-being and in applied multilevel statistical methods. His current research interests include developing and applying data science approaches for precision public policy in the context of health, nutrition and development; and understanding individual and population heterogeneity in health and well-being from a multilevel and cross-comparative perspective. He has consistently been included in the Highly Cited Researchers list since 2015 (top 1% of cited publications in Web of Science).

Sunil has over 41 years of experience in the private sector and in the government, spanning the entire spectrum from policy formulation to implementation of policy and conceiving and grounding of large infrastructure projects. Sunil is a pioneer in the development of large public private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects in India with the hallmark of taking projects from “Concept to Completion”.  He is Currently Chairman of Capital Partners and Sr. Advisor to Thoth Infra – a platform of ISquared Capital (assets under management – USD 29 billion) for the redevelopment of Railway Stations and Airports in India. He was previously CEO and Managing Director of various large corporates such as SKIL Group, Pipavav Port, Pipavav Rail, GMR Infrastructure, Capital Partners, and 50 HZ India Private Limited. Sunil was an Indian Administrative Service Officer and held senior positions in Central and State Governments. He was Secretary to the Union Minister of State for Finance, Government of India, and Deputy Secretary/Director in the Ministry of Finance. He has worked with and advised several State Government, as well as foreign governments such as the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Japan, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech and Slovak republics. Sunil has an MBA from Strathclyde Business School, UK with specialization in Financial Management & Strategy.