An engineer by training, Karthik is a Fellow and Director, Research Coordination, at The Council. As Director, he has a bird's eye view of CEEW's ongoing and planned research and ensures cross-team coherence for CEEW's research direction and imperatives. He also dons the hat of an internal adviser across research teams, creates institutional platforms that spur innovation and, in partnership with other senior researchers, continues to strengthen CEEW's foundation for world-class research.

He has played a pivotal role in conceptualising and executing some of CEEW's biggest successes and collaborative efforts such as the ACCESS and IRES surveys and the associated studies, the GHG Platform Initiative and the first full fledged office programme office based out of Lucknow. He continues to be an active researcher with the power sector and air pollution work programmes.

Karthik holds a Masters degree in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. He also holds an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and an M.Tech in Infrastructure Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.