Diva Dhar

Diva Dhar leads a team that works to strengthen data architecture and deepen research in support of women’s economic empowerment programs and policymaking. As an early member of the foundation’s Gender Equality Division, which launched in 2020, she played a key role in the design and strategy of its Women’s Economic Empowerment team.

Diva joined the foundation in 2016, working in the India office on research and evaluation grantmaking to support nutrition, health systems, information and communications technology, and youth and gender issues. Earlier, she spent more than a decade working in public policy research and design, with a focus on gender, youth, and development. She started her career working for the Indian government’s Planning Commission and subsequently worked in 10 countries for global nonprofit organizations that included the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), Innovations for Poverty Action, and the World Bank. She has lived in India, France, Morocco, and Bangladesh.

Diva is currently a doctoral candidate in public policy at the University of Oxford. She has a master's degree in international and development economics from Yale University and undergraduate degrees in economics and international relations from Mount Holyoke College.