Tariq Thachil is the Director of the Center for the Advanced Study of India (CASI), Associate Professor of Political Science at Penn, and the Madan Lal Sobti Associate Professor for the Study of Contemporary India.

Prior to arriving at Penn, Professor Thachil was an Associate Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, and before that was Peter Strauss Family Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He holds a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University (2003), and a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University (2009).

His current research focuses on the political consequences of urbanization in India. An article from this project received the 2018 Heinz I. Eulau Award for the best article published in the American Political Science Review. He writes regularly for press outlets in India, including Indian Express and Hindustan Times.

Ramanan Raghavendran is the managing partner of Amasia, a thesis-driven venture capital firm with offices in the Bay Area and Singapore. He has been a technology investor for 28 years through multiple technology life cycles.

Ramanan serves as a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania; as an Overseer of the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn; as Chair of the Governing Council of Penn’s Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI); as a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Advanced Study of India (CASI); and as the Global Coordinator of the Penn Alumni Interview Program. He also serves on the Advisory Council of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University and is a member of the Housing and Community Development Committee of San Mateo County.

He has been the seed funder and board member of several NGOs over the years and remains closely associated with Magic Bus, an NGO that works with 500,000 at-risk children in South Asia. He has three degrees from Penn: a B.S.E. in Computer Science and Engineering from SEAS, a B.S. in Economics from Wharton, and a Master of Liberal Arts from SAS.