Biography / Professional Profile
Kripa Khatiwada is a researcher based in Kathmandu working at the intersection of urban development, spatial analysis, and climate governance, with a focus on Nepal and the broader Global South. She holds a B.A. in Growth and Structure of Cities from Haverford College, with a minor in Data Science, where she was awarded departmental honors for her senior thesis on mobility gaps in Kathmandu's multimodal transit system.
Her research combines quantitative and qualitative methods, including geospatial analysis, community surveys, archival research, and stakeholder engagement. She has conducted independent geospatial research mapping wildfire risk across Nepal's high-risk districts, connecting technical findings to environmental and development policy, and has examined infrastructure equity in the United States as a research assistant.
Khatiwada is currently developing research on subnational climate finance in Nepal, examining the gap between the institutional evidence international funders require and what the country's provincial and local governments can demonstrate. She is also the co-founder of RJ Pad Udhyog, a grassroots menstrual health and environmental initiative operating across more than twenty districts in Nepal, an experience that grounds her research in the practical distance between policy intent and on-the-ground reality.
