Fellows

Durga Prasad Bhattarai

Distinguished Fellow - Former Foreign Secretary

Durga Prasad Bhattarai

Distinguished Fellow - Former Foreign Secretary

Durga Prasad Bhattarai is a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) and a senior career diplomat of Nepal. He currently serves as Nepal’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York and is concurrently accredited as Ambassador to Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. During his tenure at the UN, he has held key leadership roles including Chairman of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization Committee) and Chairman of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary Committee) of the UN General Assembly. He has also served as Vice President of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Executive Board, overseeing major global development programs.

Earlier in his career, Ambassador Bhattarai served as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal, and as Ambassador to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, as well as President of the Colombo Plan Council. He has also held positions as Minister and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, and has worked across the Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Home Affairs, National Planning Commission, and Cabinet Secretariat. His work spans multilateral diplomacy, international governance, and national policy leadership.

At IIDS, Durga Prasad Bhattarai contributes his expertise on foreign policy, global governance, multilateral engagement, and Nepal’s international relations, strengthening research and policy dialogue on diplomatic and development issues.

Dr. Arbind Kumar Mishra

Distinguished Fellow - Former Member of the National Planning Commission

Dr. Arbind Kumar Mishra

Distinguished Fellow - Former Member of the National Planning Commission

Prof. Dr. Arbind Kumar Mishra is a Distinguished Fellow at IIDS and a senior electrical engineer with extensive experience in engineering education, energy systems, and public policy. He completed his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Aligarh Muslim University and his M.Eng. in Electrical Power Systems from the University of Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), graduating top of his class. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan, and conducted post-doctoral research at UPV, Valencia, Spain.

Dr. Mishra began his academic career at the Institute of Engineering (IOE), Pulchowk Campus, Tribhuvan University, serving as Lecturer, Professor, Chair of the Electrical Engineering Subject Committee, Founder Coordinator of the M.Sc. Programme in Power Systems, and Chief of IOE Pulchowk Campus. Beyond TU, he has contributed to curriculum and academic governance at Kathmandu University, Pokhara University, and Purwanchal University.

He has also served as a Member of Nepal’s National Planning Commission (NPC) overseeing Energy and ICT, as well as Vice-Chair of the Alternative Energy Promotion Center (AEPC), shaping national energy strategies and policies. Dr. Mishra has been a senior consultant to Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) and an advisor to the National Association of Community Electricity Users, Nepal, and is internationally recognized as a resource person for utility engineers. Since May 2023, he has been serving as Director of the Quality Improvement Program (QIP) at the National College of Engineering (NCE).

At IIDS, he contributes technical, policy, and governance expertise in energy systems, infrastructure, and science-based decision-making.

Dr. Bishnu Dev Pant

Distinguished Fellow - Former Executive Director, IIDS and Former Director of ERDI, ADB

Dr. Bishnu Dev Pant

Distinguished Fellow - Former Executive Director, IIDS and Former Director of ERDI, ADB

Dr. Bishnu Dev Pant is a former Executive Director & Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) and a development economist with over 30 years of national and international experience in policy research, statistics, and institutional leadership. He provides strategic leadership and strengthens the institute’s research and policy influence. He also served as Director of the Economic Research and Development Institute (ERDI) at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), leading economic research, policy analysis, and advisory support for member countries across Asia and the Pacific.

Dr. Pant began his professional career at the Agricultural Projects Services in 1977, where he served for seven years, and holds a Ph.D. from the Indian Statistical Institute. He has held senior positions in major national and international institutions, including the National Planning Commission (NPC) of Nepal, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) in Bangkok, and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila, contributing to statistical programming, development research, and policy analysis for member countries. After retiring from the ADB in 2008, he served as Professor at the South Asian Institute of Management, guiding academic research and institutional development.

An applied statistician and policy expert, Dr. Pant has extensive experience managing statistical offices, devising development programs for less advanced countries, and undertaking evidence-based research and data-driven policy analysis.

At IIDS, Dr. Pant continues to provide strategic leadership, research oversight, and expert guidance, strengthening the institute’s capacity in development studies, economic research, and evidence-based policy formulation.

Dr. Prista Ratanapruck

Senior Research Fellow- Social Anthropologist

Dr. Prista Ratanapruck

Senior Research Fellow- Social Anthropologist

Dr. Prista Ratanapruck is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) and a social anthropologist specializing in the social and cultural dimensions of development. Her research focuses on social inclusion, participatory governance, and community centred approaches to policy analysis. She brings an interdisciplinary and people centred perspective to research, emphasizing the lived experiences of communities affected by development policies.

Dr. Ratanapruck’s work integrates anthropological insights into multidisciplinary research initiatives, helping to inform equitable and context-sensitive policy solutions. At IIDS, she contributes to advancing knowledge on social transformation, cultural dynamics, and inclusive development, strengthening the institute’s socially informed policy analysis.

Moushami Shrestha

Senior Fellow of Practice- Director, Shreenagar Agro Farms

Moushami Shrestha

Senior Fellow of Practice- Director, Shreenagar Agro Farms

Moushami Shrestha is a Senior Fellow of Practice at Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS) and Director of Shreenagar Agro Farms, where she leads initiatives in sustainable agriculture, agribusiness, and rural enterprise development. She brings practical, on the ground experience in farm management, value-chain development, and entrepreneurship to policy research and discussion.

At IIDS, Ms. Shrestha bridges the gap between field level practice and policy research, contributing insights on agriculture, food systems, and rural livelihoods. Her work ensures that research and policy recommendations are grounded in real world challenges, enhancing the relevance and impact of IIDS’s development studies.

Honorary Distinguished Fellows

Ambika P. Adhikari, DDes

Principal Planner at City of Tempe, AZ, USA

Ambika P. Adhikari, DDes

Principal Planner at City of Tempe, AZ, USA

Ambika P. Adhikari, DDes, is a Principal Planner at City of Tempe, AZ, USA heading its long-range planning division. He is also a Sr. Sustainability Scientist and frequent Faculty Associate at Arizona State University (ASU). At ASU, Dr. Adhikari earlier held the positions of Research Professor, and Program Manager at ASU International Development. He was Director of International Programs at DPRA Inc. in Toronto and Washington DC providing consulting services to projects funded by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and (then) Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

In Nepal, he was Associate Professor at Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, and later, Country Representative of IUCN (International Union of Conservation of Nature) at IUCN Nepal office. He is a Fellow of American Society of Nepalese Engineers, Member of American Institute of Certified Planners, a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Accredited Professional, and Project Management Professional (PMP).

He received Doctor of Design (DDes.) degree from Harvard University, and Master of Architecture from the University of Hawaii. He was a Fellow at Special Program for Urban and Regional Studies (SPURS) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Adhikari has authored one, and co-edited six books related to planning, environment and development. He has published several journal articles, reports and write ups in newspapers. He has professional experience in more than a dozen countries. He is active in many community organizations in North America and globally.

Prof. Alok Bohara

Professor of Economics, University of New Mexico

Prof. Alok Bohara

Professor of Economics, University of New Mexico

Dr. Alok K. Bohara is a Full Professor of Economics and the founding director of the Nepal Study Center at the University of New Mexico (UNM). He has a Masters degree in Statistics and taught at Tribhuvan University, Nepal. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado (Boulder) in economics (1986). After spending a year at CU as a visitor, he joined UNM in 1987. He is a senior research fellow at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center for Health Policy at the University of New Mexico. Using the field experiments and secondary data sources and with the blend of science and technology (whenever appropriate and possible), his research focuses on interdisciplinary research questions related to environment, health, and sustainability. He has published more than ninety peer-reviewed papers in the US and European journals. He has mentored more than twenty PhD students with a successful placement in both academic and non-academic positions. His research motto is: multidisciplinary, collaborative, and data intensive.

Prof. Avidit Acharya

Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

Prof. Avidit Acharya

Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

I am a professor of political science at Stanford University; a professor, by courtesy, of political economy at the Stanford Graduate School of Business; and senior fellow, by courtesy, at the Hoover Institution. I work in the fields of political economy and formal political theory.

My first book, Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics (Princeton University Press, 2018), received the William H. Riker Award for the best book in political economy in 2019. My second book, The Cartel System of States: An Economic Theory of International Politics (Oxford University Press, 2023), provides a new understanding of the territorial state system as it developed through time and exists today.

My papers have been published in both economics and political science journals and have received awards such as the Elinor Ostrom best paper award, the Gosnell Prize in political methodology, and the Joseph Bernd best paper award. I am an editor of the journal Social Choice and Welfare and an advisory editor at Games and Economic Behavior.

I earned a PhD in political economy from Princeton University in 2012 and a BA in economics and mathematics from Yale University in 2006. Before joining the Stanford faculty, I taught in the economics and political science departments of the University of Rochester.

Dr. Prem Jung Thapa

Senior Economist, The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Dr. Prem Jung Thapa

Senior Economist, The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare

Dr. James Joshi

Professor of the School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. James Joshi

Professor of the School of Computing and Information, University of Pittsburgh

Dr. James Joshi is a professor of the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh, and the director/co-founder of the Laboratory of Education and Research on Security-Assured Information Systems (LERSAIS). From Sept 2019 to Aug 31, 2023, he served as a Program Director in the Computer and Network System (CNS) division and its Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program at the U.S. National Science Foundation. He also served as the Co-Chair of the Privacy Interagency Working Group of the Networking and Information Technology R&D (NITRD), as well as the NITRD Fast Track Action Committees for (1) Advancing Privacy-Preserving Data Sharing and Analytics (PPDSA) that produced the National Strategy to Advance PPDSA in 2023; and (2) Digital Assets R&D Agenda (till Aug 2023). He also served in the NITRD CSIA Cybersecurity R&D National Strategy Task Force. He received his MS in CS and Ph.D. in ECE degrees from Purdue University in 1998 and 2003, respectively

He is an IEEE Fellow, an ACM Distinguished Member, a Fellow of the Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association, and an IEEE CS Golden Core member. His research is focused broadly on cybersecurity and privacy areas including advanced access control models, security and privacy of distributed systems and AI/ML, and trust management. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER award in 2006. He had earlier established and managed the NSF CyberCorp Scholarship for Service program at Pitt. He had established LERSAIS/Pitt as an NSA-designated Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (both CAE Education and CAE Research). He has served as a program co-chair and/or general co-chair of several international conferences/workshops. At Pitt, he had earlier served as the Chair of the School of Information Science (SIS) Council, the main governing body of the school.

He currently serves as the founding Steering Committee chair of the following co-located International IEEE conferences: Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC); Trust, Privacy and Security of Intelligent Systems, and Applications (TPS); and Cognitive Machine Intelligence (CogMI). He served as the Editor-In-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Services Computing from 2017-2021. He has published over 150 articles as book chapters and papers in journals, conferences, and workshops, and has served as a special issue editor of several journals including IEEE TSC, Elsevier Computer & Security, ACM TOPS, Springer MONET, IJCIS, and Information Systems Frontiers. His research has been supported by NSF, NSA/DoD, and Cisco. He established the first undergraduate degree program in Computer science and Engineering in Nepal while he was at Kathmandu University.

Honorary Fellow

Dr. Prabin Khadka

Assistant Professor in Government, University of Essex

Dr. Prabin Khadka

Assistant Professor in Government, University of Essex

Fellows

Fellows

Durga Prasad Bhattarai

Dr. Arbind Kumar Mishra

Dr. Bishnu Dev Pant

Dr. Prista Ratanapruck

Moushami Shrestha

Honorary Distinguished Fellows

Ambika P. Adhikari, DDes

Prof. Alok Bohara

Prof. Avidit Acharya

Dr. Prem Jung Thapa

Dr. James Joshi

Honorary Fellow

Dr. Prabin Khadka

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