Garima Siwach
Garima Siwach is an economic researcher at AIR, where she specializes in research and evaluation of policies and programs specific to workforce, education, and international development.
Dr. Siwach is currently the evaluation and/or cost-effectiveness lead on studies of women’s livelihoods programs in India and Nigeria, a technology aided education program in rural Zambia, and education and employment programs for youth with disabilities in the United States. She serves as the Project Director of the Evidence Consortium on Women’s Groups (ECWG) supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on synthesizing and strengthening research on women’s groups in India and East-Africa. As part of her role in the ECWG, she has authored studies on the costs and cost-effectiveness of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) in India and the implications of COVID-19 on SHG activities under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM).
Apart from her work on women’s livelihoods programs, Dr. Siwach also serves as the quantitative evaluation lead on a cluster-randomized controlled trial to determine the impact of a technology-aided instruction program on learning outcomes among students in community schools in Zambia. In the United States, she serves as the evaluation task-lead of the Transition Work-Based Learning Model in Maine. Under this project, she studies the role of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) and in-school transition programs in improving employment and earnings of youth with disabilities. She is also a part of multiple ongoing studies on examining the role of VR programs in serving employment needs of different subpopulations with disabilities.
Dr. Siwach completed her Ph.D. in Economics in 2017, and was the recipient of the 2017 University at Albany Distinguished Dissertation Award, and the 2018 APPAM award for best dissertation in public policy analysis.