Ardra Manasi is a development practitioner based in New York City, with expertise in gender policy, migration, and technology for development. She currently works at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL), based out of Rutgers University as a Senior Program Coordinator. In 2017, she served as a Policy Consultant with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), where her work focused on migration and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For Plan International’s UN Liaison Office and UN Women, through partnerships with the New School University in New York, she helped develop digital and social media strategies.

Ardra holds a Master of Arts (MA) in International Affairs from the New School, New York City, and a Master of Arts (MA) in Development Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, India. Her writings on global development have appeared in Agenda for International Development (A-id), The News Minute, Huffington Post, Madras Courier, Countering Violent Extremism Initiative, and elsewhere. Her co-authored papers and chapters have appeared in peer reviewed journals such as ‘Human Technology,’ ‘Gender, Technology and Development,’ ‘Routledge International Handbook of Sex Industry Research’ and ‘Sustainable Development Goals and Migration’ (Routledge India, Forthcoming). On Twitter, she is @ArdraManasi.