Experts & Staff

Anjali Mahendra is the Strategy Head for Research and Practice at EMBARQ, India. She provides thought leadership for new research and evaluation efforts related to transport, urban development, and climate issues. She ensures that results from implemented projects, policies, and research worldwide are used to inform EMBARQ’s projects and capacity building efforts for greatest impact. She also leads the development of guidance and best practice documents based on findings from our work and the evaluation of economic, environmental, and public health impacts of EMBARQ’s projects.

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Anjali has over ten years of experience as an expert in urban planning, transportation policy, and economic development in the U.S. and international contexts. Prior to joining WRI, she worked as a senior consultant at ICF International, in the firm’s Energy, Environment, and Transportation group, leading and managing projects for U.S. government agencies, the U.S. Transportation Research Board, and international organizations. She led a wide range of analytical projects involving estimation of regional socio-economic impacts, transport-related greenhouse gas emissions, and travel demand as well as transportation economics projects involving road pricing, transport finance, and benefit-cost analysis. She has written several guidance documents on these topics for planners and decision makers. She is a recognized expert in road pricing strategies and has published many articles, including a book on this topic.

Prior to ICF, Anjali worked as a consultant on projects in the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and India, for organizations including the World Bank, the European Commission, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Her work ranged from estimating the economic impacts of road pricing in the Netherlands and London; interventions for climate change mitigation through urban infrastructure projects funded by the World Bank; analysis on estimating the regional economic costs of traffic congestion, and a concept plan to implement Bus Rapid Transit in Lima, Peru.

Anjali is trained as an architect, urban planner, transportation policy analyst, and regional economist. She holds a Master’s degree in City Planning, a Master of Science degree in Transportation, and a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, India.

She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina with her husband Bala and three-year old son, Vivaan, and is looking forward to relocating to Bangalore, India soon for her work with EMBARQ India.