USA trained faculty neonatologist by profession, self-taught social scientist by passion and developmental researcher by preference; Dr. Anita Patil-Deshmukh is the Director- Programs and Principal Investigator in Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR). Anita received her Master’s Degree in Public Health from Harvard and worked as a faculty Neonatologist in a teaching institute in Chicago for 20 years where she was the director of Ambulatory Pediatric Residency program for 9 years and Director of Continuous Medical Education (CME) department for 20 years. She played a major leadership role within India Development Service (IDS) a pioneering Chicago based organization supporting developmental projects in India. During her voluntary tenure of 15 long years in IDS, she visited 44 Integrated Rural Development Projects in 12 states of India and learnt about the developmental issues from grass root activists and practitioners. She relocated to India in 2005 to contribute to the developmental sector and joined PUKAR. Her research interests are urban poverty, social determinants of health and urban knowledge production through the lens of marginalized youth. She has built successful collaborations with major global academic institutions like Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago Berkeley, Max Planck Institute Germany to name a few. She was a Founding Trustee of Commutiny (New Delhi) and Clinton Fellowship of AIF (USA) and served as a member of the Rockefeller Foundation Global Research Network on Urban Health Equity (GRNUHE) 2008-2010. For her pioneering work with Barefoot Researchers in slums, she was awarded Innovator of the Year Award from Harvard School of Public Health in 2012 and an honorary PhD from Bradford University in 2019. In July 2020 she was invited by the UN Foundation to speak at a UN event about digital divide as a part of her work with the World Benchmark Alliance of which she is a member.
