Nidhi Kalra

Nidhi Kalra
Senior Information Scientist
Off Site Office

Education

Ph.D. in robotics, Carnegie Mellon University; B.S. in computer science, Cornell University

Media Resources

This researcher is available for interviews.

To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.

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Overview

Nidhi Kalra (she/her) is a senior information scientist at the RAND Corporation.  Her research focuses climate change mitigation, adaptation, and decarbonization planning, as well as tools and methods that help people and organizations make better decisions amid deep uncertainty. She is an appointed commissioner for California 100, a statewide initiative inspiring a vision and strategy for California’s next century.

She has previously served as director of RAND's San Francisco Bay Area office and codirector of RAND's Center for Decision Making Under Uncertainty. She also spearheaded RAND's autonomous vehicle policy work. Kalra is the lead author of the study Driving to Safety: How Many Miles of Driving Would It Take to Demonstrate Autonomous Vehicle Reliability? (2016) and coauthor of the flagship report Autonomous Vehicle Technology: A Guide for Policymakers (2016). She is committed to using her expertise to further evidence-based policy making and has testified on autonomous vehicle policy at three congressional hearings.

Kalra also served as the vice president of the Society for Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty and, in 2018, served as senior technology policy adviser to then-U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris. In 2013, she served as a senior decision scientist at the World Bank, where she helped launch the World Bank's portfolio in robust decision making.

Kalra developed educational technology tools to promote literacy among blind children in India, a project that went on to receive the Louis Braille Touch of Genius Prize for Innovation. She holds a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute.

Languages

Spanish; Hindi

Recent Media Appearances

Interviews: CNN International; fora.tv; KCBS-AM; KJZZ - (NPR); KNX-AM; KPCC-FM Online; KQED-FM; Marketplace Radio; NBC News Online; Newsy video news service, Scripps; NHPR/New Hampshire Public Radio Online; Radio Health Journal; Rudy Maxa’s World with The Careys; U.S. News & World Report; WUSF-TV Online

Commentary

Publications