Prof. Rajesh Nair holds a Ph.D. in Health Psychology and completed a Short Intensive Fellowship on HIV, Public Health, and Program Delivery at the Sydney Medical School, University of Sydney under the Australian Leadership Award Fellowship (ALAF). He has also obtained Public Health training at the Institute of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge, UK. Dr. Nair has over 27 years of professional experience in public health practice, biomedical and health systems research, teaching, and capacity building. His work has focused on program management, monitoring and evaluation, research and development, and the design and implementation of targeted interventions for Most at Risk Groups (MARGs). He has worked extensively with the State Governments in Haryana, Punjab, and Himachal Pradesh, as well as with the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, where he served for eight years. In academia, he has been associated as faculty with the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar University and Delhi. He also served as Professor and Director at the Amity Institute of Behavioural and Allied Sciences (AIBAS), Amity University Haryana, where he established new academic programs in affiliation with the Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI), the University Grants Commission (UGC) and NAAC accreditation. Currently, Dr. Nair serves as Professor and Director at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), where he provides leadership to the ADARSH project supported by the Gates Foundation. The project is being implemented across eight states in India in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, and respective State Governments. Dr. Nair has authored over three dozen research publications in peer-reviewed national and international journals. He has led or co-led more than a dozen externally funded research projects as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Principal Investigator (Co-PI). Five PhD and one MD (AYUSH) have completed their doctoral thesis under his supervision. He also serves as a member of the Postgraduate Board of Studies at Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak, and is a Governing Council member of the Indian Institute of Public Health – Gandhinagar University, Gujarat.
