Aastha works as a Gender Strategy Specialist with Macquarie Asset Management’s e-mobility platform, Vertelo. She leads the work on gender mainstreaming across the platform’s investments in the e-mobility space. Through her work, she is undertaking innovative measures in the areas of data collection, capacity building, and launching initiatives to make the transport system safer, more accessible, and more sustainable, as well as increase women’s employment and representation. She is also a Research Fellow with 3ie, where she previously worked as a Senior Evaluation Specialist. She provided technical and management leadership to 3ie’s women’s empowerment, digital, and livelihood evaluation programs. Aastha holds a PhD in Gender Studies and a Master’s in Sociology. She has extensive experience in gender and public policy research, providing technical and management leadership to women’s empowerment programs, conducting fieldwork, and managing large-scale qualitative research across India in collaboration with government, international, academic, and research organizations. Aastha has researched the Delhi Metro, and her thesis was titled “Spatial Practices and Interactions: Exploring Gender in Everyday Life Through the Delhi Metro.”
Selected publications or texts
- Co-authored a working paper titled “The enablers and barriers to rural women’s participation in management training programs” (2024)
- Co-authored a working paper titled “Setting up women’s collective enterprises in rural India: Learnings from 3ie’s Swashakt program” (2024)
- Co-authored an evaluation report titled “Crafts collectives in western Rajasthan: Learnings from URMUL Trust’s work” (2024)
- Co-authored an evaluation report titled “Understanding barriers and facilitators to setting up and running women-led farmer producer companies” (2024)
- Co-authored an evaluation report titled “Understanding women-run weaving enterprises in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, India” (2024)
- Co-authored an article titled “Weaving through generations: Productivity gains in family -owned businesses in rural India”, Ideas for India (2024)
- Co-authored an article titled “Supporting women weavers: Learnings from producer companies”, Ideas for India (2023)
- Co-authored newspaper article, “Leveraging sanitation for livelihood” along with the Principal Secretary, H&UDD, Odisha in the Financial Express (2023)
- Co-authored the working paper titled “Learning from collective-led sanitation enterprises in urban Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Telangana” (2022)
- Co-authored the working paper titled “A framework for examining women’s economic empowerment in collective enterprises” (2022)
- Authored an article titled “Were the 1950s-70s really the “Dead Decades” of Indian women’s movement? Understanding the work of Punjab Istree Sabha through an alternate history perspective” in Punjab University Research Journal Arts (2022)
- Co-authored an article “How Anganwadis in Kerala and Tamil Nadu are Showing Better Results” published in India Spend and Scroll (2020)
- Co-authored India’s Baseline Report on SDG Index published by NITI Aayog (2018)
- Co-authored an article on women’s managerial experiences published in Economic and Political Weekly (2017). Findings acknowledged by award winning features and research studies in India and
- Co-authored a chapter in the book “India in 2047: Voices of the Young” (2017) by Bibek Debroy, Member, NITI Aayog
Selected speaking engagements
- Presented a paper and also part of a panel discussion in Colombo 2025 during a conference by Community of Evaluators, South Asia
- Conducted trainings on gender awareness and inclusivity with corporates and senior leaders in the EV and transport space
- Invited as a panel discussant for funding and requirements of green jobs in the Equilead Conference 2025.
- Hosted a podcast with women leaders, philanthropists, academicians on the theme of women and economic empowerment.
Awards and recognitions
- Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) with NET in Sociology