Dr. Rachana Devkota was a Scotiabank Postdoctoral Fellow in AI and Inclusion at the University of Ottawa AI + Society Initiative.
Dr. Rachana Devkota is an expert in agricultural economics, gender-based agricultural analysis, and rural development. Her major research interests lie within responsible research and innovation, evidence-based policy research and advocacy and sustainable international development with a strong commitment to advancing social and gender justice. She carries deep knowledge and understanding of international gender issues with more than 10 years of field level work experience around South Asia, Europe, and North America. She holds strong expertise on conducting social research using quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
Dr. Devkota was previously a research associate at York University, where she was leading the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) in the Net Zero Carbon Economy (NZCE) project in collaboration with McConnell Foundation. Before that, she was an Alex Trebek Research Fellow in AI and Environment at the University of Ottawa AI + Society Initiative, where she conducted research on social innovation (such as evaluation of living laboratories), agricultural digitalization innovations, and specifically policy initiatives in Canada, for their ability to foster small farmers and environmental sustainability.
Dr. Devkota completed her PhD at the University of Guelph, Canada, in Rural Studies with a focus on small farm mechanization policy and gender analysis. Part of her PhD research was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), which awarded her the David and Ruth Hopper and Ramesh and Pilar Bhatia Canada Research Fellowship in 2017, given to the top female candidate nationally amongst doctoral candidates. She has completed a M. Sc. in Agricultural Economics from India, with a focus on statistics and vegetable marketing. She completed her undergraduate education also in agricultural science (with a major in agricultural economics) from Nepal.
Dr. Devkota is the lead author and co-author of 10 peer-reviewed journal articles, 2 books and 12 book chapters. She has published in top international journals such as Geoforum and Sustainability and delivered talks all over the world. She also holds experience in developing proposals, managing, coordinating, monitoring, and evaluation of international development and research projects in South Asia (Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka), North America (Canada and US), Europe (Norway and the Netherlands) and also in Africa (Ethiopia).