Dr Kasturi Das is an economist, a trade and climate policy practitioner, and an educator with more than two decades of professional experience conducting research, advisory, advocacy, teaching and academic administration. In her professional journey spanning multiple countries, Kasturi has been engaging with government departments, think tanks, inter-governmental agencies, diplomatic missions, development sector organizations, media, corporates, industry confederations, management schools, not-for-profit organizations and communities.

Kasturi is presently a Professor of Economics at the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad (IMTG), Delhi-NCR – a leading management school in India accredited with the AACSB International, USA. In 2019, she was hosted by the University of Oxford, UK as a Chevening Research, Science and Innovation Leadership Fellow of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth office. She serves as a Member of the High-Level Advisory Committee on Trade and Environment of the Department of Commerce, Government of India. As a Member of ‘Climate Strategies’ – an international research network headquartered in London, Kasturi co-led a recently completed project on ‘Making the International Trade System Work for Climate Change’. As a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Group on Trade and Climate Change, Kasturi contributed towards the drafting of the policy options paper released at the 2016 Davos Summit. She was a Ford Foundation Fellow at the Development Economics Department of the University of Cambridge, UK; and the Economic and Social Research Council (UK)’s Governance of Clean Development Visiting Fellow at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Kasturi has published extensively including in the ‘Nature’ journal, ‘American Journal of International Law’, ‘Global Environmental Change’, ‘Journal of International Economic Law’, among other top journals. She has delivered invited talks, lectures and presented research papers in numerous high-level conferences, conclaves and training programmes globally.

Prior to joining IMTG, Kasturi held senior faculty positions in various government of India think tanks including the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) (Ministry of External Affairs), and the Centre for WTO Studies (Department of Commerce) where she engaged in policy research that fed into policy making processes. She also had a stint with Oxfam-GB on policy research and advocacy.

She has consulted with multiple institutions across geographies including the University of Oxford’s Martin School, United Nations, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), to name a few.

At IMTG, as the Founding Head of the I’M The Change Initiative on Sustainability & Social Responsibility, Kasturi conceptualized, designed and developed an innovative, service learning initiative and got it executed for three consecutive years – working with students, faculty, and dozens of NGO partners, reaching out with modest targeted interventions to thousands of peoples belonging to under-served communities. Under her leadership, I’M The Change won the ‘Innovations the Inspire Challenge 2018’ of AACSB International (as the sole recipient from India) for ‘Enhancing Approaches to Leadership Education Development’; got selected as a United Nations’ PRME Champion; and won the ‘Gold Award’ at the Indian Management Conclave Awards 2017 for pedagogical innovation.
A gold medalist in Economics-Masters from Calcutta University, Kasturi holds a PhD in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her PhD dissertation adopted an inter-disciplinary perspective on issues in the interface of trade and climate policy, namely technology transfer under Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism; WTO-compatibility Border Carbon Adjustments and their trade implications.

A quote on the subject:

“I envision a global energy transition that is effective, equitable, context-specific and sustainable…a transition that is in sync with the development imperative of ensuring universal access to affordable modern energy.”