Maps | Data | Design

I have 7+ years of experience in project management, process design and execution, and data science and visualization.

I'm currently the COO of Bandhu, a tech platform that connects India's blue-collar migrant workers to jobs and affordable housing. I head our tech team, lead product development and UI/UX, curate our marketing strategy and design, and use GIS and data science to discover key insights that help us improve livelihoods and better understand the migration space.

I've had the opportunity to work on the Data/Research/Development Group at MTA under "Train Daddy" Andy Byford, where I analyzed bus routes and customer journey times using Python and R, ate a lot of pizza, and got to explore the NYC subway tunnels as a pedestrian. (I highly recommend using the provided transit system instead.)

At MIT's Department of Urban Studies and Planning, I studied informal economies, migration, transit-oriented development, last-mile connectivity, and environmental sustainability/conservation. I love collecting, visualizing and analyzing data to better understand challenging issues around human settlement patterns and tell new stories about less-well-known places and histories. I've done technical trainings in English, Spanish and Hindi, and enjoy working with teams across diverse geographies, cultures, and languages.

I freelance on anything related to maps, data, and graphic design. See my projects below and contact me if you'd like to work together!

Selected Projects

My projects leverage GIS, data visualization, code and automation, and illustration techniques to communicate data-driven stories about our world.

Publications

A Home in the City: The Role of Women as Intermediaries in Enabling Bandhu’s Success

Shahana Chattaraj (WRI India), Jacob Kohn (Bandhu), Rushil Palavajjhala (Bandhu)
Paper published by JustJobs Network

Presentations

Solving Livelihoods and Housing for India’s Blue-Collar Rural-Urban Migrants: An Adaptive Approach

Urban Transformations in Asia Workshop: Current Trends and Future Trajectories, NYU Abu Dhabi Global Asia Initiative, 28-29 April 2023

Consulting

IDFC Institute / Artha Global

Developed an interactive map for public/policymakers to calculate the environmental/economic costs of commuting in Mumbai

Metropolitan Transit Authority

Developed an internal-facing analysis of existing bus routes and customer journey times using Python and R

Education

Master's in City Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Thesis: "Towards an integrated recycling system : analyzing two scenarios of informal recycling sector performance in Mumbai, India"
Focus areas: informal economies, data science, data visualization, geospatial analysis

B.A. Politics, University of Virginia

Middle East and South Asian Studies, Arabic, Hindi

Do you want to: 

Collect data in a low-tech sector or environment?

Investigate a research question
and locate a data source on it?

Tell a compelling story using a data set you already have?

Map something and turn it into a polished final product?

Get help deciding which medium will best tell your data story?

Get help designing an app, dashboard, or other product?

Let's work together!

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