ANAND SAHASRANAMAN
ABOUT
I am an independent researcher and Visiting Scientist at the Centre for Complexity Science at Imperial College London.
My research is focused on exploring socioeconomic processes through the lens of complex systems, network science, and computational models. I obtained my Ph.D. in Mathematics from Imperial College London, where I was a Schrödinger Scholar, for research on processes such as segregation and economic decline as complex systems. This has segued into explorations of migration, innovation, crime, and economic growth among other urban processes, and cemented a broader interest in the science of cities. I have also been working on evolutionary models to explore economic phenomena such as income inequality and biological processes such as longevity and the pace of life.
For a long time, in my involvement with Dvara Research, I had been working on questions of financial systems design, public economics, and household finance in low-income contexts. Given the natural links of these themes with public policy, I have also had the opportunity to engage with regulators and policy makers. I led the technical secretariat for the RBI Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services, peer-reviewed customer protection laws drafted by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission, and worked with the High Power Expert
Committee (HPEC) on Urban Infrastructure.
I trained as an electronics engineer at PSG Tech and have an MBA in Finance and Quantitative Analysis from Carnegie Mellon.
ACADEMIC, RESEARCH & POLICY
2022 - 2023
Faculty in the School of Arts and Sciences working on setting up the Economics and Mathematics programs of the university. Research agenda at the intersection of mathematics, biology, and the social sciences. One branch of research is focused on exploring socioeconomic processes through the lens of complex systems and network science. Areas of work broadly encompass the development of a science of cities including understanding emergent phenomenology such as economic growth, migration, crime, innovation etc. as well as exploring processes of inequality, for instance segregation and economic decline, as temporally evolving systems. A new area of research focuses on developing mathematical models for biological processes such as longevity and pace of life.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS AND ECONOMICS
KREA UNIVERSITY, AP, INDIA
2018 - 2022
Given the start-up nature of the university, I was involved in the design of curriculum and other administrative duties. I was part of the team that designed the mathematics and economics undergraduate curriculums, and also of specific courses such as Mathematical Reasoning, Data Analytics, and Statisitics. In addition, I was a member of the finanical aid committee as well as the curriculum and educational policy committee.
VISITING SCIENTIST, IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON, LONDON, UK
2018 -
Work with the Centre for Complexity Science on developing evolutionary models to explore socioeconomic phenomena such as economic inequality and urbanization.
RESEARCH ADVISOR & MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, DVARA RESERACH, CHENNAI, INDIA
2015 - 2019
Deliberate on directions of research and policy engagement on issues of financial systems design, and advise on development and execution of research questions. Also work on specific research questions related to public finance and household finance in low-income contexts.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DVARA RESEARCH, CHENNAI, INDIA
2010 - 2015
As a founding member of the organization, headed it for over five years. Designed and drove the research agenda on questions of financial systems design, customer protection frameworks, and public economics. Led the technical secretariat for the RBI Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services chaired by Dr. Nachiket Mor (2013), peer-reviewed customer protection laws drafted by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission headed by Justice B.N. Srikrishna (2013), and worked with the High Power Expert Committee (HPEC) on Urban Infrastructure under Dr. Isher Ahluwalia (2011). Engaged with policymakers in the Ministry of Finance, Reserve Bank of India, Ministry
of Urban Development, and Ministry of Rural Development.
ADVISOR, FIELDS OF VIEW
2021 - 2022
Strategic and research advisory on developing simulations and games for public policy.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
VICE PRESIDENT, IFMR CAPITAL, CHENNAI, INDIA
2008 - 2010
Founding member of the company (currently called Northern Arc), whose objective is to provide reliable and efficient access to capital for institutions focused on under-served segments such as households and enterprises in the informal sector. Structured the first microfinance securitisation in India.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST, PALI CAPITAL AND BROADSTREET GROUP, NEW YORK CITY, USA
2004 - 2007
Worked on modeling a range of structured products such as Collateralised Debt Obligations and Synthetic Credit Default Swaps.
SENIOR SYSTEMS ENGINEER, TATA INFOTECH, BANGALORE, INDIA
1999 - 2001
Programmer focused on application development, specifically developing business management systems for telecom companies.
EDUCATION
2015 - 2018
PH.D. MATHEMATICS, IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Physics.
Schrödinger Scholar at the Centre for Complexity Science
Thesis: The dynamics of socio-economic inequity in cities: Problems in Organised Complexity.
2001 - 2003
MBA, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Speclialisation: Finance and Quantitative Analysis
1995 - 1999
BE, PSG COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
Concentration: Electronics and Communications Engineering
PUBLICATIONS
Refereed Publications
Sahasranaman, Anand, "Long term dynamics of poverty transitions in India", Asian Development Review, 38 (2), 2021: 213-235
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Luis Bettencourt, “Life between the city and the village: Scaling analysis of service access in Indian urban slums", World Development 142, 2021: 105435
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Dynamics of reallocation within India's income distribution", Indian Economic Review, 56 (1), 2021: 1-23
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Luis Bettencourt, “Economic geography and scaling of urban and regional income in India”, Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 48 (3), 2021: 540-554
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Spread of COVID-19 in urban neighbourhoods and slums of the developing world”, Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 18 (174), 2021: 20200599
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Poverty in the time of epidemic: A modelling perspective”, Plos One, 15 (11), 2020: e0242042
Sahasranaman, Anand, Vishnu Prasad, and Aditi Balachander, “Simulating housing choice for low-income households”, Journal of Emerging Markets Finance, 19(1), 2020: 100-118
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Luis Bettencourt, “Urban Geography and Scaling of Contemporary Indian Cities”, Journal of The Royal Society Interface, 16, 2019: rsif.2018.0758
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Rapid Migrations and Dynamics of Citizen Response”, Royal Society Open Science, 6, 2019: rsos.181864
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Wealth and ethnicity: The dynamics of dual segregation”, PloS One, 13 (10), 2018: e0204307
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Cooperative dynamics of neighbourhood economic status in cities”, PloS One, 12(8), 2017: e0183468
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “Dynamics of transformation from segregated to mixed wealth cities”, PLoS One 11(11), 2016: e0166960
Kumar, Ajay, Dinesh Lodha, Ashwin Mahalingam, Vishnu Prasad, and Anand Sahasranaman, “Using ‘design thinking’ to enhance urban re-development: a case study from India”, Engineering Project Organization Journal 6(2-4), 2016: 155-165
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Vishnu Prasad, “Sustainable financing for Indian cities”, Yojana – Journal of the Planning Commission, September 2014: 47-50
Sahasranaman, Anand, “Financing the development of small and medium cities”, Economic and Political Weekly, Volume XLVII(24), 2012: 59-66
Sahasranaman, Anand, “Panchayat finances and the need for devolutions from state governments”, Economic and Political Weekly XLVII(4), 2012: 73-80
Sahasranaman, Anand, “Pragmatic Municipal Finance Reform in India: Lessons from Policy in South Africa and Brazil”, Environment and Urbanization Asia 3(2), 2012: 407-422
Sahasranaman, Anand, “The urgent need for low-income rental housing in urban India”, Urban India XXXII(1), 2012
Working Papers
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Nishanth Kumar, "Distribution dynamics of income in Indian states: Inequality, reallocation, and income transitions", SSRN, 2021, SSRN 3875471
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Nishanth Kumar, "Income distribution and inequality in India: 2014-19", SSRN, 2020, SSRN 3707153
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, "Distribution of neighbourhood size in cities", arXiv preprint, 2020, arXiv:2010.06946
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, "A self-consistent assessment of multi-dimensional fitness of cities", arXiv preprint, 2019, arXiv: 1904.06241
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Henrik Jensen, “The Economic Complexity of Indian States”, arXiv preprint, 2018, arXiv:1812.05503
Prasad, Vishnu, Anand Sahasranaman, Santadarshan Sadhu, and Rachit Khaitan, “Can asset portfolios of rural households benefit from formal financial services?”, National Stock Exchange (NSE) Working Paper Series, WP-2014-2, 2014
Sahasranaman, Anand, Deepti George, Darshana Rajendran, and Vishnu Prasad, “A new framework for financial consumer protection in India”, IFMR Finance Foundation Position Paper, 2013
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Deepti George, “Cost of delivering rural credit in India”, IFMR Finance Foundation Working Paper Series, Notes on the Indian Financial System 1, 2013
Book Chapters
Sahasranaman, Anand, and Vikram Kapur, “Evolution of private sector participation in urban infrastructure projects in India”, In Isher Ahluwalia, Ravi Kanbur, and P. K. Mohanty (Eds.), Urbanisation in India, Sage Publications, 2014
Ananth, Bindu, Nachiket Mor, and Anand Sahasranaman, “Financial Inclusion: Towards a new architecture”, In Naina Lal Kidwai (Ed.), Contemporary Banking in India, Businessworld Books, 2012
Ananth, Bindu, and Anand Sahasranaman, “Structured Finance approaches to livelihood projects in
India”, In Doris Kohn (Ed.), Mobilizing capital for emerging markets, KfW & Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011
Writing in Popular Media
Sahasranaman, Anand, Vishnu Prasad, and Dinesh Lodha, "From Srirangapatna, a data lesson for India's cities", Indiaspend, November 5, 2014
Sahasranaman, Anand, "The outbreak that enabled urbanisation: London in The Ghost Map", Sustainable Cities Collective, April 16, 2013
Sahasranaman, Anand, "No money to govern rural India", The Hindu Business Line, May 25, 2011
CONFERENCES & WORKSHOPS
Presented on income and poverty dynamics in India at the Ergodicity Economics Conference, 2022
Moderated session on modeling income inequality at the Ergodicity Economics Conference, 2021
Presented on income inequality in India at the CPHS Seminar series at CMIE, 2021
Presented on Indian income distribution and dynamics at the Conference on Complex Systems, 2020
Presented on distribution of neighbourhoods in cities at the Conference on Complex Systems, 2020
Presented on distribution of neighbourhoods in cities at the 7th International Conference on Computational Social Science IC2S2, 2020
Panel discussant in the Virtual Math Fest 2020 panel discussion on “Public understanding of mathematicians and mathematicians’ understanding of society” conducted online, 2020
Presented model on Covid-19 and poverty at the Theoretical Geography debates titled “COVID-19 by the Numbers, Models, Big Data, and Reality” conducted online, 2020
Presented our research on urban slums “Life Between the City and the Village: Comparative Analysis of Service Access in Indian Urban Slums”, at the “Improving the Lives of Urban Poor” Conference organized by the University of Chicago in New Delhi, 2019
Chair of session on rural local governance and finance at national workshop on rural development at DRI, Ministry of Rural Development-UNDP, Chitrakoot, 2017
Participant at the Global Sustainability Summer School, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, 2016
Moderator of session on innovative tools for financing metropolitan infrastructure at the XIth Metropolis World Congress, Hyderabad, October 2014
Roundtable discussant on design of illustrated booklets for capacity building in Gram Panchayats at the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, UNDP, Delhi, 2014
Speaker on financing public infrastructure and services in metropolitan cities at the Conference on Financing Metropolitan Governments in Developing Countries, ICRIER, Delhi, April 2014
Panelist on sustainable financing of rural governments at workshop on enabling development through Panchayati Raj in India, IRMA-CDRI-ThinkTank Initiative, Anand, May 2014
Organizer, IFMR Financial Systems Design Conference: Envisioning the future of financial consumer protection in India and speaker on designing a framework for customer protection in financial services at the IFMR Financial Systems Design Conference, IFMR Trust, Chennai, September 2012
Speaker on securitization in microfinance at the Securitisation Summit, Mumbai, May 2012
Context anchor of the theme "Financial Inclusion and the urban economy" and Chair of plenary session on systemic challenges of implementing financial inclusion in urban India at the India Urban Conference, Mysore, November 2011
Organizer, Workshop on Urban Infrastructure and Service Delivery, IFMR Trust, Chennai, 2011