Nikilesh Anusha Natesan

Nikilesh Anusha is a Research Associate with the Social Networks Lab at J-PAL South Asia.

Prior to joining J-PAL in 2025, Nikilesh worked at the Data, Policy and Innovation Centre (DPIC) in Odisha, where he supported a large-scale research project on household flood adaptation, focusing on survey design, data analysis, and policy translation of the findings.

He also worked extensively with administrative datasets such as the state’s social registry and health insurance data, developing ETL workflows and conducting analytics to inform migration, social protection, and health policymaking. Previously, at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), he contributed to projects on alternative livelihoods and ecosystem valuation.

Nikilesh holds an MA in General Economics from the Madras School of Economics and a BA (Hons) in Economics from Christ (Deemed to be University).