Dr. Veda Vaidyanathan is a policy researcher trained in International Affairs who has spent the past decade examining developing economies in Asia and Africa. An Associate Fellow of the Foreign Policy team at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) in New Delhi, she is also affiliated to the Harvard University Asia Center. Formerly a Fung Global Fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies at Princeton University, a recipient of the ICS-Harvard Yenching Institute, and the Indian Council of Social Science Research Doctoral Fellowships.

Veda is trained as a multi-disciplinary scholar who works on transregional issues. Over the past decade, her effort has been to work with universities, research institutes and Civil Society Organizations in Africa, to gather perspectives on Indian and Chinese engagement across countries and sectors from the grassroots and produce evidence-based research.