Radhika Iyengar

Dr. Radhika Iyengar is Director of Education and Research Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Development of Columbia University’s Earth Institute. She leads the Education for Sustainable Development initiatives as a practitioner, researcher, teacher and a manager. Her research interests consist of conducting evaluations of educational programs and international educational development. In addition to directing education initiatives at the Center and fieldwork in over 10 countries, she contributes to the scientific community focusing on international educational development with articles published in reputed journals and reports that are used by both domestic and international stakeholders. She received a distinction from Teachers College, Columbia University on her Ph.D. dissertation Social capital as a determinant of schooling in rural India: A mixed methods study. She received her Master’s degree in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, India.

Radhika has been working in the areas of sustainable development and environmental education at the Center for Sustainable Development since 2011. At the Center she collaborated with scientists, health experts, environmentalists and others on various topics such as education on COVID, mental wellbeing and environmental science education. She has been working with Governments and NGOs in multiple-countries advising on designing education and environmental education programs. Her current research includes testing for high fluoride content in water sources in Central India. She received the prestigious Earth Frontiers grant in 2020 on community-based education on fluoride testing.

She has over 15 years of experience in international education development. She has recently co-edited two books, Teacher Education in South Asia with Palgrave Macmillan and Interrogating and Innovating Comparative and International Education Research with Sense Publication in 2019. Her latest article is on Education as the path to a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 in UNESCO’s Prospects Journal. Previously, she received a distinction from Teachers College, Columbia University on her Ph.D. dissertation. She recently received an Early Career award from Teachers College. Columbia University. She was the Chair of Environmental and Sustainability Education Special Interest Group at the Comparative and International Education Society and is currently a Board member of Comparative and International Education Society. She is also a Board member of other entities such as the Alliance for New Jersey’s Environmental Education and PAL Network among other NGOs.