Professor Shyamal Chowdhury is the Rajiv Gandhi Chair of South Asian Economics at the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics, Crawford School of Public Policy, and the Director of the Australia South Asia Research Centre (ASARC).

Shyamal’s primary research area is economic development, focusing on the economics of seasonal migration, the development of non-cognitive skills in children, microfinance, and technology adoption. He has published in leading journals, including Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Journal of Public Economics, the Journal of Development Economics, and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. His research has examined countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, Uganda, and Kenya.

Shyamal graduated from Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh with a BSc (Hons.) in Economics, an MA in Economics from the University of Kiel, Germany and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from Bonn University, Germany. Prior to joining the Australian National University, he worked for the International Food Policy Research Institute (from 2003-2006), the World Bank (2006-2007) in Washington DC, USA, and the University of Sydney (2007-2024). He is the Secretary of the Australasian Development Economics Association (ADEA) and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Germany.