Contributor : Profile

Reetika Khera is an Associate Professor of economics at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. In the past, she has been Associate Professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Delhi. She studied at the Delhi School of Economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) and Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex (M.Phil.).  She was a post-doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University where she worked on child nutrition. Before joining IIT-Delhi, she was a visitor at GB Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, Centre for Development Economics, Delhi School of Economics and the Planning Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.

For her Ph.D., she conducted a primary study in eight villages of Rajasthan.  The thesis looked at the effectiveness of public interventions (such as relief works and the public distribution system) to prevent famines. Since then, she has remained involved in various field activities in India including surveys, social audits and "research for action" related to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), Public Distribution System and others. An important part of her work has been to encourage and train university students to participate in these activities. More than 300 university students from across the country have participated in surveys and other field activities under her guidance. She has published in professional journals, magazines and newspapers on issues of food security, NREGA, education, child nutrition and elections in India.