Piyush Prakash

Piyush Prakash is a senior public policy professional and an institutional researcher with over 12 years of experience working with city, state, and federal governments in India and the U.S. His expertise lies in optimizing public systems by integrating leadership development, strategic planning, and behavioral science(gamification techniques) and by implementing robust monitoring and evaluation systems for data-driven and evidence-based policy making. His interests also extend to strategy consulting and growth strategy. He has helped establish multi-million-dollar centers of excellence in cybersecurity while working as a management consultant and provides growth strategy advice to various ed-tech (pre-K to higher) and health start-ups.

He previously served as a Senior Research Officer (Under-Secretary/Deputy Director) at the Government of India's federal public policy think tank, where he contributed to the formulation and implementation of India's National Education Policy 2020. He has also worked on improving the UN Sustainable Development Framework’s (2023-2027) educational key performance indicators for India and assessed the World Bank-funded TEQIP program aimed at improving the quality and employability outcomes of engineering colleges. Most recently, he worked on the formulation of Illinois’s No Wrong Door Policy to facilitate the seamless administration of human services such as CCAP, Head Start, and Early Head Start across government agencies. He is a regular contributor to government reports, book chapters, national dailies, and journals, and he appears as a policy expert on national and parliamentary TV in India. An engineer by training he holds a Masters in Public Policy with a specialization in data analytics from the University of Chicago and another Masters in Education from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. 

As a Presidential Research Fellow at Claremont McKenna College, he is currently developing a comprehensive metric and assessment tool designed to evaluate a range of leadership competencies among students. This project utilizes a rigorous mixed-methods research approach, incorporating qualitative methods—such as observations, focus group discussions (FGDs), and simulations—alongside quantitative tools, including surveys and advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, to systematically measure and track leadership development. Additionally, he is engaged in creating a national-level metric to assess civic leadership, aiming to establish a standardized framework for evaluating civic engagement and leadership in a diverse population. 

He teaches LEAD 10: Foundations of Leadership, the introductory course in the Leadership Sequence offered by the Kravis Leadership Institute at CMC. This course uses a range of interactive pedagogical tools to enhance learning and provide a practical, hands-on experience. Students work with case studies from leading business and policy schools, engage in leadership questionnaires that encourage self-reflection and growth, and complete an applied project that offers real-world insight into leadership challenges.  10: Foundations of Leadership