Rajiv Kumar is working as a Senior Program Associate in the Outcome Measurement team.

Rajiv brings several years of experience in development economics research and field-based impact evaluation, spanning agriculture, environment, education, and governance. His work has centered on rigorous, evidence-based methods - including randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs - to estimate the causal impact of policies and programmes on environmental and socioeconomic outcomes.

Prior to joining CEGIS, he worked as a Research Associate with researchers affiliated with Harvard University and the University of Chicago, based in Patna, Bihar, where he led work estimating the causal impact of sand mining on environmental and socioeconomic outcomes across 17 districts of Bihar, using satellite imagery and administrative data in a difference-in-differences framework. Before that, he spent about two years at J-PAL. He began as a Research Assistant on a Pratham job-matching project across Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh — managing a calling team and coordinating with Pratham's placement coordinators and state-level officials to align on the placement process. He then served as a Research Associate on a full RCT with Precision Development across three districts in Maharashtra, focused on reducing excess nitrogen fertilizer use among cotton farmers through the Leaf Color Chart tool, which involved close coordination with Vanamati, Maharashtra's state agricultural training institute in Nagpur. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Research Consultant with researchers at MIT, the University of Chicago, and the Tata Centre for Development on projects examining media bias and gender norms.