Mahesh Karra

Dr. Mahesh Karra is Associate Professor of Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and the Director of the Program on Women’s Empowerment Research (POWER). His academic and research interests are broadly in development economics, health economics, quantitative methods, and applied demography. His research utilizes experimental and non-experimental methods to investigate the relationships between population, health, and economic development in low- and middle-income countries. He has conducted field work in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, and his current research uses randomized controlled trials to evaluate the health and economic effects of improving access to family planning and maternal and child health services in Malawi, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Tanzania. He previously work for PRB and the Futures Group International and served as a consultant to the World Bank, the World Health Organization, and the Population Council.

Dr. Karra holds a B.A. in Economics and Hispanic Studies (Joint Hons) from McGill University, an M.Sc. in Economics from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics, and an Sc.D. in Global Health Economics from Harvard University.