Krishaan Vadia is a rising sophomore at Harvard College who is passionate about global development and human welfare, with a particular focus on poverty, education and human capital, and humanitarian crises. His interests lie at the intersection of economics, public policy, law, and social enterprise as avenues for reform, especially within emerging markets.  As a member of Harvard’s inaugural cohort of Laidlaw Scholars, Krishaan researches how innovative financing mechanisms enabled private capital markets to make infrastructure investments with diffuse public benefits a mainstream asset class and what lessons these models may offer for mobilizing private investment in human capital development.

At Harvard, he was one of two first-years selected as a liaison to former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and also served as an associate to former Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb through Harvard’s Institute of Politics. Additionally, he served as Policy Chair of the Harvard Undergraduate Foreign Policy Initiative, where he led a six-member team as first author of a 56-page policy white paper on the impact of fiscal constraints on chronic malnutrition in East Africa, presenting recommendations to the commissioner (Action Against Hunger, a global NGO) in New York City after winning a competitive travel grant. He is also on the masthead of the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review as Director of Outreach, is Project Head of Education & Admissions Initiatives for the Harvard Undergraduate Rural League, and conducts intelligence research for Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic on genocidal rhetoric, active peace negotiations, and field reporting related to Russia’s war in Ukraine. 

Beyond campus, he conducted original cross-market economic development research adopted by City of Indianapolis to support stakeholder engagement on 60+ large-scale AI data center projects, analyzing enacted land-use ordinances across five peer cities to develop regulatory compliance and tax abatement recommendations for capital-intensive development initiatives in the city. He also serves as a Campaign Fellow for Beau Bayh’s Indiana Secretary of State campaign. Outside of his academic and professional interests, Krishaan has a longstanding love of vocal performance/dance, for which he has competed and won awards at the national level.