Arpita has a background in applied policy research, urban analytics, and planning information systems. She has worked towards promoting planning and information equity for marginalized groups, both in the United States and abroad. As a researcher with the University of Illinois, she analyzed large government datasets to reveal economic and housing impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the arts ecosystem in Illinois. With Illinois Extension, she developed a reproducible disaster resilience toolkit for rural communities containing an interactive data dashboard and planning information library for all counties in IL. It builds upon her earlier work of developing geospatial planning models in rural India – a work that explores evidence-based, equitable planning techniques in resource-poor contexts in the age of information technology.

Arpita holds a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2022) and a Bachelor of Urban Planning from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi (2018). At Strategic Economics, she is interested in the intersection of urban analytics and plan implementation, and brings her myriad of experiences to develop innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to planning analysis and implementation.