Pradeep Kumar Choudhury is an economics faculty at Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, USA in 2023-24, and currently holds an affiliate Associate position there. Pradeep is also an Associate Researcher of Centre de Sciences Humaines Delhi, a social science research institute of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs (MEAE). He is one of the founding members of the Comparative Expertise & Research in Education (CERE) Observatory of BRICS countries of the Institute of Education, HSE University, Moscow. He serves in the editorial board of the Journal of International Cooperation in Education. Pradeep is an empirical development economist with research interests at the cross section of education, gender, inequality, and labour markets. Using administrative data and randomized experiments, his research informs how technology, climate and early-life decisions impact human capital development in developing countries, examines how merit is getting instrumentalised with the new processes involved in the making of education market today, and analyses how gender and social identity shape mobility, opportunities and labour market outcomes. He is collaborating with PHFI on a large-scale project on children’s learning variability in India, funded by Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland. Pradeep’s recently concluded collaborative experimental study with University of Pennsylvania and University of Copenhagen examines how in-class smartphone bans impact students’ academic performance. He also had research collaborations with Stanford University (USA), Word Health Organisation (WHO) and UNESCO. Pradeep also received the China-India Visiting Scholar Fellow grant of the Ashoka University in 2021-22.
He graduated in Economics from University of Hyderabad and received his PhD in education economics from National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.
Current Projects:
“Determinants of Learning Variability in South India’s MAASTHI Birth Cohort.” LEVANTE Flagship Research Initiative, Jacobs Foundation, 2026, Collaboration with PHFI – (Grant amount: One Million USD).
Visit Dr. Choudhury’s website and LinkedIn page to learn more.
