Varun Kshirsagar leads IPA’s research and development on poverty and resilience measurement tools used by practitioners and policymakers. He designed, using machine learning principles, the Poverty Probability Index (PPI^®) methodology used by IPA and has led its implementation since December 2016. Previously, Varun worked as a consultant to USAID on several projects related to the analysis of local food prices. In partnership with experts from the World Bank, USAID and NASA, he developed approaches to understand and quantify the influence of local factors on food markets in developing countries. Before that, he worked as a consultant to the World Bank for whom he employed a broad set of quantitative tools to inform policy advice and operational lending in the agriculture and rural development sector, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa. He has a BA in Economics from Mumbai University and a PhD in Economics from North Carolina State University.