Prof Nitya Rao

Nitya Rao is Professor, Gender and Development at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. She has worked extensively as a researcher and advocate in the field of women’s rights, employment and education for over three decades. Her research interests include exploring the gendered changes in land and agrarian relations, migration and livelihoods, especially in contexts of climatic variability and economic precarity. She has done fine-grained research on households and intra-household dynamics in these contexts to draw out implications for gendered wellbeing, empowerment and justice, with a particular focus on food, nutrition and health security. She has published extensively on these themes in international peer-reviewed journals and books. She has consistently engaged with policy and practice, at both the global and local levels. Apart from supporting networks on women farmers in India, she served on the Global Advisory Committee of the United Nations Girls Education Initiative for over a decade. She is currently a member of the Steering Group of the High-Level Panel of Experts to the Committee on World Food Security. She has additionally supervised and mentored over 25 PhD students and several early career researchers in the areas of her interest.