Alumni Feature | Kiran A B, Master’s in Public Policy ‘17

Kiran grew up in Bengaluru and holds Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University. He worked as a software developer at Cognizant Technology Solutions before pursuing his Master’s in Public Policy at NLSIU. As a trained engineer, Kiran appreciates the vision of the MPP program in promoting interdisciplinary education which equipped him to understand social sciences in general and public policy in particular. He recalls that the flexibility of the modules and the course content helped him gain knowledge both in theoretical and practical aspects related to public policy. Further, he describes, the MPP program laid a strong foundation to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research, especially academic research. He says, “the research environment at NLSIU motivated me to publish and present my work in many international conferences and helped me gain clarity to pursue academic research”.

MPP offered many quantitative and text analytics modules which motivated him to explore the emerging field of computational methods such as Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, sentiment analysis, among others. “I think I was able to blend my technical skills from engineering and apply it effectively in social sciences, and the MPP program provided the right ecosystem”, he says. He highlights the need for data-driven approaches in social sciences in India to address “methodological apathy” and numeracy skills gaps. Kiran is a PhD candidate at the Q-Step Center, University of Exeter, and one of the few recipients of the prestigious Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) studentship in Advanced Quantitative Methods. His research area includes computational social science, political communication, disinformation, social media, media effects, propaganda, elections, voting and political advertisements. He is a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant at the Q-Step Center where he teaches Data Analysis and Statistics. He is a co-investigator in many leading academic projects including India Election Studies 2019 and Facebook data grant. He has published in top academic journals and has been invited to talk on disinformation and social media by many institutions.