Vidya is a Senior Research Officer in the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network at ODI. She is an mixed methods policy researcher specializing in poverty dynamics, conflict, and gender. Her work focuses predominantly on the role of state fragility and conflict in sustaining poverty traps, and gendered human capital development as a means of long-term poverty reduction. Vidya maintains a geographic interest in South Asia and the Middle East North Africa region, while her fieldwork experience is predominantly centred around South and East Asia. She holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Cambridge.