Nara Sritharan

Biography

Nara Sritharan received her PhD in Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in May 2022. Nara received her BSc in Economics from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in 2013. Her dissertation research was focused on peacebuilding and ethnic reconciliation in post-conflict/conflict countries. Her primary case study is Sri Lanka, primarily the northern and eastern regions inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Her work has been supported by the Political Economic Research Institute Fellowship and the PERI Bernard Family Fellowship.

Her past work has focused on subnational foreign allocation in conflict/non-conflict zones and the intersection of domestic governmental politics and international donor politics. Her previous work has been published as blogposts and policy briefs through Security in Context and Human Security Lab.

At GRI, Nara is working on the AidData Tracking Underreported Financial Flows methodology, where she will work on sharpening the use of the extensive data collection through creating metadata, conducting research at the nexus of geospatial analysis and econometrics, and analyzing the environmental impact of the Belt & Road Initiative in the Global South. She will also be working on publishing her current working papers.

More details on Nara’s profile and research can be found at www.narayanisritharan.com.