Speaker Series with Param Iyer

About the Speakers: 

Param Iyer was Secretary to the Government of India in the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation from 2016 to 2020. He led the implementation of the US$20 billion national flagship Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission), which was tasked with delivering access to safe sanitation to 550 million people. 

He is currently the Chief Executive and Program Manager of the 2030 Water Resources Group, a public-private-civil society partnership hosted by the World Bank in Washington, DC. He is also a Professor of Management Practice at the JSW School of Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. 

He has over 25 years of experience in the water and sanitation sector between his time in public service and at the World Bank, which he describes in his recent memoir "Method in the Madness: Insights from My Career as an Insider-Outsider- Insider."
 

Jenna Davis is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Higgins-Magid Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. She also serves as Editor-in-Chief of PLOS Water. Professor Davis’s research and teaching focus on the intersection between water, health, and economic development, with particular emphasis on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Davis's group conducts intensive, field-based primary data and environmental sampling, coupled with complementary modeling and managed experiments. Her research group has worked with partners in more than 20 countries, most recently including Zambia, Uganda and India. At Stanford Professor Davis teaches courses in water and sanitation planning and policy, public health, and interdisciplinary research design.