Apurva Bamezai is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Ashoka University. She previously held a Postdoctoral Visiting Fellowship at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was affiliated with the Center for the Advanced Study of India and the Penn Development Research Initiative. Her research examines political selection, bureaucracy, and public goods provision, with a regional focus on India. Her current agenda centers on rural local government, with ongoing projects examining pathways into local electoral politics, peer networks among politicians, and the effectiveness of gender quotas. Her research has been supported by J-PAL’s Governance Initiative, the International Growth Centre, and awards at the University of Pennsylvania such as the Presidential Graduate Fellowship and the Sobti Family Fellowship, among others. Before her doctoral studies, Apurva spent over eight years in development research and public policy, conducting mixed-methods evaluations of Indian government programs and frontline service delivery in social protection, nutrition, and early childhood education. She also holds graduate degrees in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from Delhi University.
