Jinnat Ara is an experienced professional with a demonstrated ability to research with various national and international organizations in the areas of Poverty, Microfinance, Women Empowerment, Primary Health Care Schemes, Health insurance etc. She was awarded PhD in Economics from the Queensland University of Technology, Australia in 2021. She joined BIDS in 2022 as a Research Fellow. Prior to joining BIDS, she led the research of Universal Research Care (URC) Ltd., Bangladesh as a Research Director during 2021-2022. She worked for BRAC's Research and Evaluation Division (RED) which has been integrated with the BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) in January 2019 as a Research Associate since 2009 and became a Research Fellow in 2015. Much of her work is based on impact evaluations of the development programming on income, employment, food security, gender dynamics, asset ownership, health, and financial market participation. She has several publications in internationally accredited journals. She has experience working with a number of donors and international development organisations including the DFID, ESRC, Concern Worldwide, UNICEF, ADB, UNDP, IFPRI, JAICA etc. 

Health Economics (e.g., Health Care Financing, Impact Evaluation of Health Care Programs, Health Systems, Health Insurance), Development Economics (e.g., Extreme Poverty, Microfinance, Adolescent Development), Labour Economics, Behavioural Economics.