Gayatri Sahgal

Political Scientist focusing on state-building, conflict and the political economy of taxation.

Gayatri's work and interests lie at the intersection of state-building, governance, taxation and political economy of development in fragile and conflict-affected countries. Gayatri recently completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where she further developed her thesis research on taxation and state reconstruction in contexts of fragility. Gayatri’s research is informed by a decade of field experience as a research and monitoring evaluation specialist. In this capacity, she managed and led evaluation studies for various governance and development organisations, including the World Bank, the European Union, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and the United Nations Development Programme. As a mixed-method researcher, Gayatri is skilled in qualitative and quantitative methods. Her expertise spans several countries, including Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, India and Afghanistan. Gayatri holds a PhD from the University of Oxford, a postgraduate degree in Public Policy from Brown University, a Master’s in Development Studies from the Institute for Development Studies at the University of Sussex and an Undergraduate Degree in Political Science from Delhi University.