Sonalde Desai
Distinguished University Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Maryland, Professor and Centre Director, NCAER-National Data Innovation Center, New Delhi
Prof. Sonalde Desai is a demographer whose work deals primarily with social transformation and its impact on the lives of individuals with a focus on education, employment, gender, and maternal and child health.
She leads the India Human Development Survey of over 40,000 households, one of the few national panel surveys in India providing a rich and free public resource for studying the transformation of the Indian society in the 21st Century. Prof. Desai has published extensively in Indian and international journals and served on editorial boards of several major journals. She is a frequent contributor to Indian English language newspapers.
Prof. Desai received a Ph.D. from Stanford University and post-doctoral training at the University of Chicago and RAND Corporation. Desai was elected President of Population Association of America for 2022 and has been named a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).