Suhani Jalota

Dr. Suhani Jalota is a Hoover Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Her main research uses field experiments to explore the intersection between women’s employment, health, and agency and how technology can amplify their agency. In her doctoral dissertation, she analyses constraints to women’s paid work and uses digital jobs from home to study the increase in female labor force participation in India.

Suhani founded the Myna Mahila Foundation, a research-driven social enterprise with the mission to increase women’s agency and decision-making power to make them more confident, financially independent, and healthy. Founded in 2015, Myna Mahila now has a reach of 1.5 million women and a team of 70 in India. She also founded Myna Research, a data collection arm that manages field experiments on women's issues in urban slums in India. She and her team are also currently developing Rani Work, an employment platform for women in India to work on digital jobs on their smartphones.

For the last fourteen years, she has been working in urban slum areas and rural communities on projects ranging from adolescent girl health, water and sanitation to social protection policies in South Africa, Thailand, and several cities in India. She is a Forbes Asia under 30 recipient 2018, Hindustan Times 30U30 2021, Asia 21 Leader 2019, Young Achiever’s Mother Teresa Memorial Awardee 2018, and Queen’s Young Leader 2017.

Jalota was a Knight Hennessy Scholar at Stanford University, where she received her PhD and MBA. She has a BS in Economics and Global Health with the highest distinction from Duke University.