Arathi Rao is the Director of the Global Climate Policy Project, a joint initiative between Harvard and MIT dedicated to advancing innovations in global climate policies and institutions.
Prior to joining the Salata Institute, she worked for ten years at the U.S. Treasury Department, coordinating U.S. Treasury’s international climate engagement, serving as the policy lead on the World Bank, and covering the Latin America and Africa regions as deputy director. She also served as an advisor to the U.S. Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund, where she worked on concessional finance, debt, and climate policy issues.
Before joining the U.S. government, Arathi worked at the One Campaign, the World Bank, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She had a Fulbright fellowship to conduct research on climate change adaptation with BRAC and the Centre for Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh.
Arathi holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow.
The Salata Institute
The Salata Institute supports interdisciplinary research that leads to real-world action, including high-risk/high-reward projects by researchers already working in the climate area and new endeavors that make it easier for Harvard scholars, who have not worked on climate problems, to do so. Faculty interested in the Climate Research Clusters program should note an upcoming deadline for concepts on April 1, 2024.