Madhumitha works as a Research Analyst with the Sustainable Food Systems team at the Council. She has a background in economics with particular interests in development economics. In her current capacity, she is working on understanding the impacts of natural farming practices. Her evolving research interests include agriculture-nutrition linkages, agricultural value chains, and issues around social inequality.

Prior to joining the Council, she worked at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) in Bangalore. She contributed to a report on the synergies and trade-offs in climate action and the SDG, and was actively involved in enabling the institution to provide knowledge support to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in its attempt to reform the finances of urban local bodies. She was also an intern with the Financial Inclusion and Development Department at the Reserve Bank of India where she evaluated the uptake of crop insurance through primary data collection.

Madhumitha completed her masters in Environmental Economics from the Madras School of Economics, Chennai. Her Master’s thesis examined the spatio-temporal trends in crop diversification pre- and post-Green Revolution, and analysed whether crop diversification provided any significant yield and/or revenue resilience in the face of droughts. Through other academic pursuits, she has leveraged data and econometric methods in various themes including health insurance, gendered commuting behaviour, intra household allocations, and environmental valuation.

Outside work, Madhumitha likes to embroider, crochet and paint. She is an avid fan of slice of life shows. She was a national level air rifle shooter.