Partners

Honorable Shri R. B. Barad (IAS) is the Chairman of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB). His responsibilities encompass overseeing the board’s operations and ensuring compliance with pollution control laws, particularly the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981.
Previously, Shri R. B. Barad held the position of Deputy Municipal Commissioner (Ahmedabad) and Municipal Commissioner (Jamnagar). He also served as the Collector in various cities in Gujarat. His leadership and commitment to environmental causes have resulted in significant advancements, including improved air and water quality in Gujarat. With his expertise in administrative leadership and passion for sustainable development. He continues to drive positive change in the field of environmental conservation.

Hon’ble Shri D. M. Thaker is the Member Secretary of the Gujarat Pollution Control Board with an additional charge as director of the Forest & Environment Department. He holds a strong educational background with a masters in Environmental Engineering. His experience at the Gujarat Pollution Control Board spans over 25 years working at various positions at the regional field offices and the head office.
He is actively engaged in programs designed to address environmental challenges and the pollution control sector and contributed in many initiatives of the Board including implementation of re-engineered manifest and VLTS system of the Board for better management of e-waste and hazardous waste in the state. He has played a pivotal role in implementation of many new paradigms during his tenure at the Board.

Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, Senior Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). Prior to joining the University of Warwick, he held the position of South-Asia Director at EPIC and taught at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

He received his PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and holds undergraduate and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi) and Stanford University, respectively. His research encompasses several aspects of energy and environment policy, including the design of environmental regulation, air-pollution reduction, climate change, energy efficiency, electricity access, and renewable energy policy. Anant works at the intersection of environmental economics and engineering, with on-going research on a variety of areas including environmental regulation, air-pollution, climate change, energy efficiency, electricity and renewable energy. His present work includes collaboration with India’s Ministry for Environment and Forests to design and evaluate a pilot emissions trading program to regulate industrial air pollution. He is also working with the Government of Bihar on electricity distribution reforms designed to reduce losses and enhance the supply of power.

Michael Greenstone is the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, the College and the Harris School, as well as the Director of the Becker Friedman Institute and the interdisciplinary Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. He previously served as the Chief Economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, where he co-led the development of the United States Government’s social cost of carbon. Greenstone also directed The Hamilton Project, which studies policies to promote economic growth, and has since joined its Advisory Council. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, and a former editor of the Journal of Political Economy. Before coming to the University of Chicago, Greenstone was the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics at MIT.

Greenstone’s research, which has influenced policy globally, is largely focused on uncovering the benefits and costs of environmental quality and society’s energy choices. His current work is particularly focused on testing innovative ways to increase energy access and improve the efficiency of environmental regulations around the world. Additionally, he is producing empirically grounded estimates of the local and global impacts of climate change as a co-director of the Climate Impact Lab. He also created the Air Quality Life Index that provides a measure of the gain in life expectancy communities would experience if their particulates air pollution concentrations are brought into compliance with global or national standards.

Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.

Nicholas Ryan studies energy markets and environmental regulation in developing countries. Energy use enables high standards of living but rapid, energy-intensive growth has caused many environmental problems in turn. Nick’s research measures how energy use and pollution emissions respond to regulation and market incentives. His work includes empirical studies of the effect of power grid capacity on electricity prices, how firms make decisions about energy-efficiency and how environmental regulation can be designed to best abate pollution at low social cost.

Nick is joining Yale University as a Cowles Foundation Fellow for 2014-15 and an Associate Professor of Economics from 2015 onwards. He has been a Prize Fellow in Economics at Harvard University from 2012-2014. He received a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2012 and a BA in Economics summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania. He previously worked as a Research Associate in the Capital Markets group at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC.

Rohini Pande is the Henry J. Heinz II Professor of Economics and Director of the Economic Growth Center, Yale University. She is a co-editor of American Economic Review: Insights.

Pande’s research is largely focused on how formal and informal institutions shape power relationships and patterns of economic and political advantage in society, particularly in developing countries. She is interested the role of public policy in providing the poor and disadvantaged political and economic power, and how notions of economic justice and human rights can help justify and enable such change.

Her most recent work focuses on testing innovative ways to make the state more accountable to its citizens, such as strengthening women’s economic and political opportunities, ensuring that environmental regulations reduce harmful emissions, and providing citizens effective means to voice their demand for state services.

In 2018, Pande received the Carolyn Bell Shaw Award from the American Economic Association for promoting the success of women in the economics profession. She is the co-chair of the Political Economy and Government Group at Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), a Board member of Bureau of Research on Economic Development (BREAD) and a former co-editor of The Review of Economics and Statistics. Before coming to Yale, Pande was the Rafik Harriri Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School, where she co-founded Evidence for Policy Design.

Pande received a PhD in economics from London School of Economics, a BA/MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Oxford University and a BA in Economics from Delhi University.