Gayatri Kawlra joined the Rockefeller Foundation in 2017 as a Strategy Analyst. She is a graduate of Columbia University’s masters in Global Thought, which is aimed at understanding issues of globalization through fresh categories of intellectual inquiry and policy practice. Her Master’s thesis focused on the challenges of creating sustainable cities using the case of an ecological community in south India to provide socially inclusive and environmentally sensitive solutions for cities of the future. Prior to joining the Foundation, Gayatri worked at the United Nation’s Capital Markets Global Summit and most recently she was awarded the Social Impact Fellowship at RPCK, a corporate law firm in New York where she developed a project investigating strategies that drive successful impact investing at scale. She is also a contributor to Urban Research (UR), an imprint of Terreform, an urban research and advocacy centre in New York City.
Gayatri also has grass roots experience in India working at a permaculture farm in Auroville, and with Aide et Action (AeA), an international NGO based in Chennai, where she assisted in developing community-based solutions in education for tribal youth and successfully launched a crowd funding campaign raising $5000 for AeA’s school development projects.