Our Team

Prof. Krishnan Narayanan is a distinguished economist and faculty member at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay), where he serves as a Professor in the Department of Economics and has held leadership roles, including Head of the Department. He also serves as Honorary Secretary of the Forum for Global Knowledge Sharing (Knowledge Forum).

He earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the United Nations University-Institute of Advanced Studies, Tokyo.

Prof. Narayanan’s research spans key areas of development economics, energy and industrial economics, international business, industry-environment linkages, and the socio-economic impacts of climate change. His work combines deep theoretical insight with empirical rigor, contributing to an extensive portfolio of peer-reviewed publications and influential edited volumes on technology, innovation, and economic performance in India and beyond. He is also actively involved in academic mentorship, having supervised over 30 doctoral theses across topics such as productivity, trade, climate change adaptation, labour economics, and human capital development, and he engages with interdisciplinary research communities that bridge economics with sustainability and industrial innovation.

Tara Shankar Shaw is a Professor in the Department of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, India. His primary research areas include corporate governance, applied microeconomics, development economics, and econometrics. He has made significant contributions to understanding corporate social responsibility, firm performance, and economic inequality in India. He has published in The British Accounting Review, the British Journal of Management, Corporate Governance: An International Review, the Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, the International Review of Finance, The International Journal of Accounting, and Accounting Horizons, among others. Dr. Shaw is actively involved in teaching, research, and doctoral supervision at IIT Bombay, contributing to both academic scholarship and policy-relevant research in India.

Dr. Vartika Arora is Senior Project Manager at the Department of Economics Innovation Lab, IIT Bombay, with over 14 years of experience in academic and industry-based economic research, teaching, and institutional project management. She was previously Head – Trade & Research at the MVIRDC World Trade Center, Mumbai. She has held teaching and academic engagements at NMIMS, the Bombay Stock Exchange Institute, Gargi College (University of Delhi), and Sophia College. She began her career in the industry with CRISIL and marketRx. Her work focuses on research project management and interdisciplinary research initiatives.

Puja Priyadarsini Sahoo is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Economics Innovation Lab. Her work involves contributing to applied research projects in economics and finance, in close coordination with faculty members and institutional partners. She joined the Lab in January 2026 and has since been involved in research assignments supporting applied policy research and programme activities.

Puja holds a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She has formal training in economic theory, quantitative methods, and policy analysis. Her research lies in Applied Microeconomics, Industrial Economics, and International Trade with a particular focus on the performance and financing of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India. Her work involves large-scale firm-level data analysis and contributes to policy-relevant research. She has previously been associated with IIT Bhubaneswar as an intern and was a short-term visiting student at KU Leuven, Belgium. During her doctoral studies, she served as a Teaching Assistant for undergraduate courses in Indian Economy and Microeconomics, and has presented her research at national and international conferences. Beyond academic work, interests include reading, writing, and engagement with public policy and socio-economic issues.

Shreya Jain is a Research Associate at the Department of Economics Innovation Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, where she contributes to applied research at the intersection of economics, finance, and public policy. Her work involves supporting the design, implementation, and dissemination of research projects in close collaboration with faculty members and institutional partners. She is also involved in the design and development of the Innovation Lab’s website.

Shreya holds a postgraduate degree in Economics from the School of Economics, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya (D.A.V.V.), Indore, and is currently a doctoral scholar at IIT Bombay. Her doctoral research engages with questions in development economics, gender and household decision-making, and policy evaluation, with a strong emphasis on applied microeconometrics. She has served as a Teaching Assistant for core economics courses including Indian Economy, Microeconomics, Econometrics, Mathematical Economics, and Public Finance. Earlier, she interned with the Project Appraisal and Management Division of NITI Aayog (formerly the Planning Commission of India), where she worked on national highway projects and gained practical exposure to large-scale public project appraisal methodologies. She contributed to the report titled “A Practical Approach towards Appraisal of National Highway Projects in India.” Her field research experience includes primary data collection in rural Madhya Pradesh for her master’s thesis on agricultural crop insurance. Beyond academia, she is a published poet and the author of the poetry collection An Economist Learns to Rhyme.

Lavanya Kosuri is a Research Associate at the Department of Economics Innovation Lab, IIT Bombay. The role involves contributing to applied research projects at the intersection of economics, finance, and public policy, in close collaboration with faculty members and institutional partners. Lavanya joined the Lab while pursuing doctoral research and has been involved in supporting data-driven policy studies, background research, and programme activities.

Lavanya holds a postgraduate degree in Finance from the Jagdish Sheth School of Management (formerly IFIM Bschool) and is currently a PhD scholar in Economics at IIT Bombay, specializing in firm-level data analysis, corporate governance, and financial economics. Lavanya’s doctoral research focuses on creditors’ rights, firm behaviour, and the post-effects of economic policy interventions on markets and society. Prior professional experience includes research roles in academia and industry at Ernst & Young LLP India. Her research emphasizes applied, data-driven insights with relevance for real-world decision-making. A strong focus on sustainability and interdisciplinary collaboration shapes her motivation, aligning with innovation-led approaches to understanding and addressing complex economic challenges. Beyond academic research, Lavanya’s interests include sustainability initiatives, interdisciplinary collaboration, reading, and engagement with broader socio-economic issues.