Suhani Jalota is a PhD student in Health Policy and Economics and MBA student at Stanford University, as a Knight Hennessy Scholar. She is from Mumbai, India. Her dissertation topic is around social norms around women’s work and how digital jobs from home or from local centers can increase female labor force participation in India. She further studies the effects of such new forms of employment on women’s wellbeing, mental health, agency, and dignity outcomes. She and her team have built a smartphone-based platform, Rani Jobs, that provides women with micro-tasks.

For the last eleven years, she has been working in urban slum areas and rural communities on projects ranging from adolescent girl health, water and sanitation, to social protection policies in South Africa, Thailand, and several cities in India. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics and Global Health from Duke University. She is also the Founder and CEO of Myna Mahila Foundation, an organization working on women’s health and employment in slum communities in India for the last six years that has a reach of 1 million+ women. She is a Forbes Asia 30 under 30 recipient, Hindustan Times 30U30, Asia 21 Leader, Young Achiever’s Mother Teresa Memorial Awardee, and Queen’s Young Leader.