Dr Sudeshna Chatterjee is Director of Research at WRI India Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, where she works across diverse teams within the Cities programme, comprising over 200 staff, to deliver robust, policy-relevant, interdisciplinary research that bridges evidence and implementation across urban systems.

A globally recognised urban leader, she sets the programme's research strategy, mentors researchers and builds staff capacity, with demonstrated results in scaling knowledge products and strengthening the evidence base for programme goals. She represents WRI India on WRI's Impact Committee, shaping how the institution defines, measures and delivers impact globally.

Sudeshna's work shapes urban policy at the highest levels of government. Mandated by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India, she led WRI India's development of national urbanisation policy recommendations for an equitable, productive, low-carbon and resilient system of cities. She serves on working groups convened by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and the National Institute of Urban Affairs and contributes policy briefs to ministry publications. She conducts capacity-building workshops for senior government officials at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA). Her current research focuses on India's transitional urban areas and the hidden urbanisation they generate. She has twice received WRI's Golden Waffle Award for research excellence for her publications.

Sudeshna's global work is anchored in a career-long commitment to inclusive cities and to communities in informal settlements and in crisis. At UNICEF Headquarters, she co-led the first corporate evaluation of UNICEF's work for children in cities, mapping programmes across 72 countries and evaluating models in Brazil, India, the Philippines, Spain, Belize and Syria to inform UNICEF's global urban strategy as well as sectoral urban strategies.

Sudeshna was lead researcher and author of the WHO–UNICEF–UN-Habitat global guide on urban public spaces for children and has delivered worldwide trainings based on it to advance SDG 11. She served on the UN working group for General Comment 17, which converted a chronically neglected treaty provision on children's right to play into an interpretable, monitorable legal obligation. Her professional volunteerism involves serving on the global Board of International Play Association (IPA), being Editor-in-Chief of its flagship magazine, Play Rights, and being a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of E-Planning Research and Children, Youth and Environments.

Sudeshna has seeded and scaled two institutions. Action for Children's Environments (ACE), the non-profit she founded, built multi-year, multi-city programmes in partnership with UN bodies, governments at every level and other non-profits. KCA, the urban design firm she co-founded, won large commissions in city-wide urban regeneration, master planning of new townships and housing; there she led the urban design and open-space master plan and form-based code for Naya Raipur, Chhattisgarh's new capital city, working closely with the state government and the Naya Raipur Development Authority.

Sudeshna holds a PhD from North Carolina State University and a master's in urban design from SPA Delhi, and publishes and speaks widely on urban systems and transformation, equitable, healthy and climate-resilient cities, and inclusive public space. She lives in Delhi with her husband and son, and is a voracious reader, avid traveller and cinema buff.