New faculty spotlight: Nishank Varshney, PhD

Nishank Varshney, PhD, is a new faculty member at UNMC.

• Name: Nishank Varshney, PhD
• Hometown: Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
• Title and department at UNMC: Assistant professor, Department of Education and Child Development, UNMC Munroe-Meyer Institute

Research interests:

• Early childhood education
• Infant and maternal health
• Community well-being
• Cost-benefit analysis
• Social impact financing

How I fell in love with my field: During my undergrad, I worked on a project related to the implementation of the Right to Education Act in India. As part of this project, our team helped thousands of students from underprivileged backgrounds to obtain free education in private schools from Class I through Class VIII. This project made me realize the vast scope of doing good for our society through the implementation of well-intended social policies. This led me to switch my career from engineering to public policy, focusing on programs and policies in education and health. I love that I can use my data analysis and research skills to help improve the life outcomes of members from the disadvantaged sections of our society.

Education:

• PhD in public affairs, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2023
• Master of Public Policy, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2018
• MSc in mathematics, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India, 2014
• BE in electronics and instrumentation, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Rajasthan, India, 2014

Memberships:

• American Evaluation Association
• Society for Prevention Research
• Association for Public Policy and Management

Three things people may not know about me:

• I love traveling. I have visited 27 of the 50 US States in the last seven years.
• I love playing board games. Catan is my all-time favorite.
• My wife and I are both movie buffs, particularly of Bollywood movies.