Our Team

Advisors

Dr. Pawan Kumar Jha

Thematic Expert – Sanitation

Nitya Jacob

Thematic Expert – WASH

Dr. Prabir Kumar Dutta

Thematic Expert – Public Health

Ratna Saxena

Thematic Expert – Child Rights and Protection

Dr. Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Thematic Expert – Girl Child Education

Arish Syed

Advisor – Strategy & Partnerships

Core Team

Paresh Kumar

CEO and Co-Founder

Minal Srivastava

Director – HR, Finance and Administration

Dr. K Satheesh Kumar

Regional Head – South India Operations

Chandan Srivastava

Advisor
Legal Finance and Taxation

Dr. Bindiya Narang

Program Coordinator (ECCD)

Shilpi Madnawat

Program Coordinator (Urban)

Dr. Chandni Tyagi

Senior Manager – Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation

Rashi Goel

Manager – Monitoring,
Learning & Evaluation

Anish Panjiyar

Assistant Manager – Data & Field Operations

Nairita Das

Research Associate

Madhavi Nikose

Research Associate

Mohita Bansal

Research Associate

Surbhi

Executive – Admin & HR

Vivek Kumar

Accountant

Chandan Sharma

Manager – Field Operations

Rajesh Kumar Jha

Assistant Manager – Field Operations

Kundan Vishwakarma

Executive – Data

Vrinda Gupta

Assistant Manager – Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation

Vivek Kumar

Accountant

Kriti Gautam

Research Associate

Vivek Sharma

Deputy Team Lead

Dr. Pawan Kumar Jha

Dr. Jha has over 30 years extensive experience and expertise in developing sustainable technologies, their implementation, monitoring and evaluation, policy research, preparing guidelines, training & capacity building in the fields of environmental sanitation, SLWM, septage management, biogas from human wastes and other waste in urban and rural areas in India and other developing countries.
He has assisted different ministries of Government of India like Ministry of Jalshakti, Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, Department of Science and Technology/ DSIR (MoS&T), MoHUA, MoEFCC, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and different state governments in India; several bilateral / international agencies like ADB, WSP- SA / World Bank, UNHABITAT, GIZ, Water Aid India, BMGF, WASTE the Netherlands, JBIC, ICEF, and BORDA, Germany.

Nitya Jacob

Nitya Jacob is a WASH policy analyst. He has more than three decades of work experience in the development sector across nine countries. He worked with numerous government and non-government bodies. He worked as the head of Policy with WaterAid India, an NGO supporting drinking water and sanitation projects in the country. He has written few book like “Jalyatra on India’s traditional water management practices”, “A Memoir of Two Toilet Inspectors” etc. Jacob also headed the water advocacy and research function at the Centre for Science and Environment, a research and advocacy NGO based in Delhi. Jacob has written and edited books and articles on India’s traditional water wisdom, rural governance and trends in rural development. His essay on water was published in an UN-sponsored publication Water Voices from around the World. He is a WASH Policy Analyst.

Dr. Prabir Kumar Dutta

Dr. Prabir Kumar Dutta is a senior TB Advisor & Public Health Specialist having working experience of more than 52 years. Dr Dutta is a chest physician currently operating out of his own private practice in Kolkata and has worked extensively in TB.
He was in-charge of conducting training on RNTCP in the districts of North-Eastern states and West Bengal during his tenure at Directorate of Health Sciences at Government of West Bengal. He has worked with Dr. Thomas Frieden the then Chief Project officer, WHO and has written the WHO working module in local language Bengali for the grass root level health workers. He holds a MBBS degree and Diploma in Tuberculosis and other diseases of chest from University of Calcutta. He is one of the founding member of the association named Chest Physician located West Bengal.

Ms. Ratna Saxena

Ratna Saxena, is a senior development professional having more than 30 years of work experience, including 21 years on issues related to child protection and child rights. She has worked with Govt. and Non- Govt. organizations like State Govt., MWCD, UNICEF, Justice and Care, NCPCR at senior levels. She has work on visualizing long-term strategy for Justice & Care and align short-term goals for influencing policies and practices in the context of Anti Human Trafficking. During her stint with MWCD, she has supported MWCD and State Governments towards implementation of monitoring system for ICPS and provided technical support to the State Governments towards development of monitoring reports.
Ratna, possess strong research and analytical skills with special emphasis on data collection and analysis tools & has solid program management and implementation experience. She’s an excellent trainer on Child rights and protection issues, on special laws such as JJ & POSCO Act and relevant central schemes. Ratna has provided psycho social support to children and families during emergencies in four states of India. She has published papers on drug abuse and child sexual abuse. She has completed her M.A in Psychology from Delhi University and also holds a Diploma in Educational-Vocational Guidance and counselling form NCERT.

Dr. Deepti Priya Mehrotra

Dr. Deepti Priya Mehrotra is a researcher and social scientist with multi-disciplinary academic training and interests. She has established professional expertise in Gender, Education, Adolescence and Child Rights, with a strong track record over the past three decades. Associated with a number of INGOs, NGOs and educational institutions , she works in varied capacities including consultancies for research, evaluation, documentation, editing, writing, training and curriculum development, to grassroots engagement, teaching and advisory roles, in the non-profit sector as well as with schools and universities.
Recent consultancies include work with UNFPA, CorStone, Oxfam-India, Aga Khan Foundation, Action Aid, TARSHI, GIWA, Magic Bus Foundation, Pravah and Study Hall Educational Foundation.
Deepti has a number of publications to her credit: including papers, articles, chapters in edited volumes; independent books (such as a biography of peace activist Irom Sharmila, a book on Single Mothers, and a social history of folk theatre–all published by Penguin Books); as well as published reports (as with Oxfam, Plan, Aga Khan Foundation).
She has taught at Delhi University and TISS-Mumbai (as Visiting Faculty) and at Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra (as Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Political Science).

Arish Syed

Arish has 29+ years of experience as a strategist cum practitioner in diverse sectors, with proven leadership in designing & executing complex projects as well as driving growth. Being analytical and capable of directing business transformations by delivering impactful solutions, have been instrumental in enabling decisions to fuel organizational development & change management. Creating synergistic partnerships & cultivating strategic relationships with multi-stakeholders and boards across diverse cultures have been a part of the portfolios.

Arish has multi-domain social development experience i.e. Public Health, Education, Governance, Child Protection, Youth Development & Livelihood as well as Humanitarian Response & Emergencies. He has led larger government initiatives such as Digital Health & Wellness Centres, Polio Eradication, UN Joint Programme on Convergence as well as POSHAN the community-based management of malnutrition in India.

Arish is an Electronics Engineer and a MBA in marketing & finance.  He has over these years earned many certifications adding to his skills around digital (ITIL4 foundation) course, social development from TISS Mumbai, Strategic Intelligence, and E-Government Principles from UN Public Admin. Network as well as Legal & Regulatory Framework for NFPs in India.

Paresh Kumar

During the last two decades in his career, Paresh has made many contributions to research, monitoring and evaluation in the social development sector. Paresh has co-authored the book “Is it really Clean–creating a WASH Index”. He has published his research work in international journals like The Lancet Global Health, Social Science & Medicine, Implementation Science, AIDS Education & Prevention, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. Paresh is the architect of an innovative BCC model called M4DTM (Music for Development).
He has spearheaded several Measurement, Learning and Evaluation (MLE) grants funded by Government, trusts, foundations, INGOs, bi-laterals and other development partners in the area of public health, nutrition, livelihood, education, child rights and WASH. Paresh has travelled the length and breadth of India that has given him a remarkable feel for the pulse of the real India. The early stage of Paresh’s life was marked with disciplined education, cricket, a rich vein of the creative life and with powerful essence of music and culture. Whenever he finds time, he enjoys strumming his guitar, composing songs or jingles. He has keen interest in Urdu and Hindi literature and loves writing poems and shayari.

Minal Srivastava

Minal is one of the co-founders of DevInsights, who brings on board skills of planning and coordinating administrative procedures and systems and devising ways to streamline processes. She has actively been involved in recruiting personnel and allocate responsibilities and as well office space. She is keen observer with eye on details and provide insights to ensure maximum efficiency within the organization. Her professionalism, sincerity, optimism, quality and timeliness are her key strengths. Minal is a commerce graduate with around 10 years of experience in the service sector including banking and automobile sectors. She has in past worked with Toyota & HSBC group. She is brilliant cook and loves feeding and pampering people with her sumptuous delicacies.

Dr. K Satheesh Kumar

Dr. Satheesh has around two decades of professional experience in the field of Social Research and worked with various donor and social research agencies across India. He has led several national and state level research assignments funded by reputed donors such as World Bank, UNDP, UNICEF, IFPRI, NACO, CDC-Atlanta, USA, CIFF-UK, etc. He is specialized in, Designing and implementing Baseline survey, Impact assessment and process monitoring; Communication strategies for targeted interventions; Poverty alleviation, Livelihood development and women empowerment; Corporate social responsibility and Shared value creation strategies; Data analysis, interpretation and reporting.
Satheesh is a PhD in Social Work from University of Madras. Based out of Chennai, with strong networks with other South states like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Satheesh handles the South India operations of DevInsights. He is a passionate social worker with great admiration for music and art.

Chandan Srivastava

Chandan Srivastava is a Taxation Lawyer who brings in more than 12 years of experience in the field of taxation and finance. At DevInsights he handles Direct / Indirect Taxes and Company Law matters as well as Tax Audits, Internal Audits & Statutory Audits. He is a Law Graduate from Agra University. In his leisure, Chandan loves to drive and explore new places.

Dr. Bindiya Narang

Dr. Bindiya Narang is a Post Doctorate in Social Work from Jamia Millia Islamia University and has over a decade long experience in the development space. She has been involved in a range of assignments and consultancies for a number of NGOs and INGOs on a plethora of projects centered on rural livelihoods, public health, women and gender issues, life skills, early childhood care and education, emergent literacy etc. She is inclined towards community organization and ethnographic research.

She is adept in content creation and documentation, and has a fair share of research publications in national and international peer reviewed journals of repute. Her flair for writing and creative expression also reflect in her ability to paint and write poetry.

Shilpi Madnawat

Shilpi Madnawat, an Architect and a Post Graduate in Environmental Planning from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, has been working on various aspects of urban development for over a decade. She has a keen interest in urban research, strategy and policy formulation and government advisory on urban planning, management and development.

She has worked on projects like Enabling Strategic Master Plan of Delhi and Formulation of Knowledge Product on Co-creating Public Spaces within Urban Neighborhoods with National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA). She has also been associated with the Delhi Urban Art Commission (DUAC) where she contributed towards Rationalization of Norms and Guidelines for Vehicular Parking for Educational Facilities, Developing Signage Guidelines for Public Spaces – Parks and design ideas for Enabling of Safe Public Spaces in Delhi.

Free time for her is about gardening, paper quilling, nature walks and travelling.

Dr. Chandni Tyagi

Dr. Chandni Tyagi is a Doctorate in Social Work from Jamia Millia Islamia University and a Gold Medalist in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has more than 10 years of experience in the development sector. She has worked in the capacity of Researcher in several international non-profit organizations on thematic areas such as gender, land rights, child rights and tribal rights. She led projects on women’s land rights, tribal rights to forest and livelihood, education of children from vulnerable and marginalized communities and quality education of children in government schools. She has successfully led and executed research projects in difficult areas and challenging communities. She is inclined towards qualitative research and enjoys writing human stories and case studies for research. She is adept in project management, process documentation and a rights-based approach to development.

In her free time, she loves to read books to her daughter. She also has a flair for baking goodies.

Rashi Goel

Ms. Rashi Goel is a research professional and holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Madras School of Economics. She currently works as Manager- Monitoring, Learning and Evaluation with DevInsights. During her tenure here, she has been involved in multiple baseline and impact evaluation studies, in various capacities, with organisations like McGill University, PATH, CRY, AKF etc. Her area of expertise lies in public health, education and child rights related projects. She is adept at developing study tools, secondary research, data analysis, drafting reports and overall management of the project. She previously worked in the Data Science and Analytics department of Cognizant Pvt Ltd.
Fond of reading and observing societal behaviors, Rashi is keen on doing her bit for the society. With a knack of learning new things, she enjoys dealing with data sets, theories and exploring new econometric techniques to gain better insights. In her leisure time, you can always find her binge-watching shows and movies.

Anish Panjiyar

Anish completed Bachelors in Education (B.Ed.) from CRSU, Haryana after completing his Bachelor in Science (B.Sc.) from Lalit Narayan Mithila University and currently pursuing M.Ed. through distance learning. Anish brings around 3 years of experience in the area of social research where he has handled large scale data and field operations. Anish is proficient in data analysis and adept in using analytical software like SPSS and STATA. He helps the team at DevInsights developing data collection / survey applications like CS Pro, ODK, Survey CTO, KOBO ToolKit, mWater.

Nairita Das

Nairita Das is a master’s in Public Health from Manipal Academy of Higher Education. She currently works as a Research Associate at DevInsights. She is also a Registered Nurse graduated from KIIT University. Previously, she has worked as a Clinical Instructor at Neotia Academy of Nursing, Kolkata. She holds a keen interest in Nursing and public health especially in health policy. In her leisure time, she loves to watch movie, and listen to music.

Madhavi

Madhavi’s interest in Green building & development, waste management and city mapping started from the days of her bachelors. She holds a bachelor degree in Planning from School of Planning and Architecture Bhopal and did her masters in Urban Policy and Governance from TISS Mumbai. She works as a Research Associate at DevInsights. Before joining DevInsights she worked as a research intern at Janaagraha.

She is determined and optimistic in nature and is always ready to learn new things. She is a fitness freak and a wanderer. She is also a volunteer in People for animals Bhopal and loves working for stray dogs and animal protection.

She likes to spend her free time with her pets and other fur babies. She feels glad to be a part of DevInsights.

Mohita Bansal

Mohita Bansal is a graduate of Delhi Technological University, formerly known as the Delhi College of Engineering. She currently works as a Research Associate at DevInsights. Previously, she worked on projects related to welfare and health sector analysis. She holds a keen interest in public development and welfare. She likes to spend her time with fictitious characters and nature.

Surbhi

Surbhi completed her Masters in Arts (M.A.) from Rohilkhand University. After completing her Masters she worked as HR Recruiter in Ooty (Tamil Nadu) and then she worked as a Teacher in Udaan International school.

At Devlnsights, she works with the Admin & HR department and is responsible for all administrative needs for the teams and projects that organisation handles. She also contributes towards the human resource and infrastructural management of the organisation. She believe in learning from her mistakes for she strongly feel that this virtue will take her ahead in life and career.

She love nature and likes traveling to the hill stations.

Vivek Kumar

Vivek Kumar is young, committed, energetic, hard-working and a self-motivated professional who completed his Bachelors in Commerce from Lalit Narayan Mithila University. Prior to joining DevInsights, he had a long stint with a CA firm where he gained skills related to auditing and compliances. Vivek in hands-on on GST and TDS computations and filing returns.

Vivek possesses excellent organizational, problem-solving, project management and communication skills. Vivek is a cricket enthusiast and loves listing to music.

Chandan Sharma

Chandan completed his Graduation from Magadh University. Chandan leads the field operation division of DevInsights, Delhi office. He is a seasoned field operations and management professional with more than 18 years of experience in managing field operations in almost all states of India. He has led and managed more than 100 field based studies covering Public Health, WASH, Education, Livelihood sectors. Chandan in the past has managed very large scale studies including the Annual Health Surveys, National Family Health Surveys, DLHS,NFHS, and LASI etc. His expertise lies in field planning, team recruitment, ensuring data quality, delivering data on time with desired quality. Chandan has been a part of field leadership team in his previous organization.

Rajesh Kumar Jha

Rajesh is a graduate of the University of Bhagalpur. He has been in the marketing and social research field for more than twenty years. He has worked with premium research-based organizations like GFK MODE and Mindfield before joining DevInsights. Rajesh brings with him expertise and knowledge on a wide variety of research techniques and systems, planning and overall management and monitoring of field operations. He likes travelling and seeing new places and reading in his free time.

Kundan Vishwakarma

Kundan Vishwakarma, completed his B.Com from Magadh University. He is currently working with DevInsights as Executive – Data and Field Operation. In his current role, he is responsible for data management, managing MIS and other databases, manage and maintain effective record keeping. He is an honest & a very hard-working person with great communication skills.

Before joining DevInsights, he worked as an Office Assistant in Vasages Beauty & Health Care Pvt Ltd.

Kundan likes to play chess in the free time.

Vrinda Gupta

Vrinda holds a master’s degree in International Relations from The University of Edinburgh (Batch of 2017) and a Bachelor degree in Economics from Delhi University. She wrote her thesis on the socio-economic empowerment of women and testing the efficacy of equal education as a means of achieving that in India She holds immense experience across various verticals of public health, inclusive but not limited to disability, SRHR, HIV, and family planning. She has worked in policy advocacy and government communications space as well. She has worked for various national and international organisations and engaged with multilevel stakeholders. Her exposure has equipped her with the right skills and rich experience. She is adept at project management, research, field management, and efficiently operating direct line of communications with the client. Her expertise in data analysis lies in qualitative data.

Vrinda holds keen interest in international relations and the social development field especially women empowerment, maternal and child healthcare, education, WASH and sanitation. In her leisure time, she likes to read non-fiction novels, paint, play chess and badminton, and study topics related to her field.

Kriti Gautam

Kriti comes from the field. She has been collecting census-like data for Sydney councils and has been actively involved in observational data collection for events and market research while she stayed in Australia after completing her MPhil in small firm behavior.

She has a passion for social research and aspires to be a Quantitative Researcher and Analyst in the future. A native of Lucknow, Kriti is currently assisting senior social scientists at DevInsights as a Research Associate.

Apart from research, Kriti loves to cook fusion cuisine, do yoga and watch mystery series.