Vinitha Rachel Varghese, who pursued her MA in Economics at University of Hyderabad (UoH) from 2011 to 2013 at the School of Economics, successfully defended her PhD this summer at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She has also recently taken up the role of Assistant Professor at Alma College Michigan.
Dr. Vinitha was previously a visiting PhD fellow at UNU WIDER, Helsinki, Finland, and has also held research positions at Oxford Policy Management and IFPRI. Vinitha is an applied Microeconomist. She has published in the areas of Development Economics and Economics of Education. During her time as an MA student, Vinitha actively engaged in community involvement through Project Akshara, which focused on government school children in the University of Hyderabad neighbourhood. Reflecting on her experience at the School of Economics, Vinitha says, “The School of Economics and UoH gave me a space to explore myself and to figure out that I was deeply passionate about community engagement. It was a wonderful time to have amazing and approachable faculty who encouraged healthy discussions. I am really hoping that I would stay as approachable as my UoH faculty were to me, in my academic career”.
Congratulations and best wishes to Dr. Vinitha.