Deepa Gupta

Deepa Gupta is a development professional with over 15 years of experience in grassroots implementation, program leadership, and academic research, working with national and international organizations, including BRLPS, Plan International, BRAC International, and World Bank-supported projects. Most recently served as Deputy Director-Immersion and Learning Exchange (ILE) at Bandhan Konnagar. A Doctoral Fellow at IRMA, with degrees from IIT Guwahati and NIRDPR, her research focuses on social behavior change, rural sanitation, livelihoods, and gender. Author of the Book titled “Toilet Adoption in Rural India: Social Norms and Behavior Change”, she has published internationally, presented at global forums, and championed women’s leadership, social inclusion, and strategic partnerships in rural development.

2013-2014: “Food and Nutrition Security: An Integrated Approach” at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, in coordination with ‘Right to Food Campaign’ and ‘State Institute of Rural Development, Chhattisgarh.

2015: Whit(h)er Farming? Saving Crops or Saving Lives at Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat.

2016: Case study of Implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission in villages of Bihar at Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat.

2018-2019: Determinants of demand of sanitation in rural sanitation at Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat, in collaboration with National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad

2015 to 2023: “Sanitation behavior in Rural India: Social Norms, Networks and Communication” thesis titled under FPM (RM) program at Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat.

• Biswas, S., De, I., Mudra, G., & Gupta, D. (2024). Toilet Adoption in Rural India: Social Norms and Behavioural Changes. Taylor & Francis.
• Gupta, D., & Nath, P. K. (2024). Why do cooperatives succeed? A comparative analysis of the global south and north. International Journal of Rural Management, 20(1_suppl), S105-S122.
• Nath. P, and Gupta. D.(2022), “GeM: A Fresh initiative to strengthen Indian Cooperatives, The Cooperator, 60 (03), pp. 37-42.
• Gupta. D. and Biswas. S.N. (2020), “Implementation of Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) in the Rural Areas”, Learning Rural Management- Cases and Caselets (Vol 1, pp. 3-16). ISBN 978-93-89431-09-4, New Delhi, India: Mahatma Gandhi National Council of Rural Education (MGNCRE), Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.
• Gupta. D. (2020), “Hegemonic Planning, People and Significance of Metis”, Manthan, an alumni initiative of the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR). Link
• (Under Review) Co-authored Paper titled A Systematic Review of Peacebuilding Initiatives from a Social Change Marketing Perspective, Journal of Consumer Marketing.
• (Accepted) Gupta. D. “Adoption of Toilets under SBM (G): A case study of rural India, Encyclopedia of Social Marketing with Palgrave Macmillan.
• (Under review) Case Study "Breaking the Oath: Policy, Practice, and Prevention of Sex Trafficking in Nigeria", Encyclopaedia of Social Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan.
• (Work in Progress) Four different journal papers and Book chapters on Social Marketing in India.

· Gupta. D., De. I. and Biswas, S. N. (2020), Normative Evaluation and Social Norms influencing the Sanitation Behavior in Rural India, Virtual Subsistence Marketplace Conference, Los Angeles, California: Loyola Marymount University, from 30th May to 1st June’2020.

• Gupta. D, (2022), “Structural and Non-Structural Determinants influencing the Sanitation Behavior in Rural India” at World Social Marketing Conference’2022, Brighton, UK.
• Gupta. D, (2022), “Sanitation Behavior in Rural India” at International Conference Sustainable Business Practices in a VUCA World ICSBP2022 conducted by Rabat Business School, Morocco.
• Gupta. D, (2022), “Sanitation Behavior in Rural India: Role of Public and Community Institutions” at Third Virtual Subsistence Marketplaces Conference: The post-pandemic “New” Normal in Subsistence Marketplaces? Conducted by Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, California.
• Gupta. D and De. I (2022), “Sanitation Behavior in Rural India” at Third International Conference on Maintenance and Intelligent Asset Management”, ICMIAM 2022, Rural Assets for Sustainable Development
• Gupta. D. and Nath. P. (2022), “Why Only Some Cooperatives Succeed: A Comparative Analysis of Asia-Pacific Region and Beyond? At 24th Annual Convention of the Strategic Management Forum (SMF), 2022.
• Gupta. D. (2021), Sanitation behavior in rural India, presented at “AIM-AMA Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium” conducted by Jagdish Sheth School of Management.
• Participated in the IGCS winter school 2019: Sustainable waste management conducted by Indo-German Centre for Sustainability at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, in collaboration with RWTHAACHEN University, Germany.
• Participated in two days World Toilet Summit’18 at world toilet day, conducted by the World Toilet Organization, Singapore at Mumbai, India, in 2018.

• Gupta. D., De. I. and Biswas, S. N. (2019), “Factors influencing the sanitation in Rural India” on Management Doctoral Colloquium and VGSOM Research Scholars’ Day (MDC & VRS 2019) at Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.
• Gupta. D. (2019), “Social challenges on Solid Waste Management in rural and peri-urban Chennai” at Indo-German Centre for Sustainability at Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai.
• Gupta. D., De. I. and Biswas, S. N. (2019), Poster Presentation on “Determinants of demand of sanitation in rural India” at WIN Conference 2019, Innovate and Empower to Accelerate Social Change conducted by WIN Foundation at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar.
• Gupta. D. (2019), “Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Conditions Have Failed” at TASS, a book review, at Institute of Rural Management Anand.
• Gupta. D. (2019), Poster Presentation titled “Social Norms, Behaviors, and Sanitation Marketing: Challenges and Opportunities” at 7th PAN IIM World Management Conference 2019 conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak.
• “WIN-KPCSD Roundtable Conference: Innovation to drive Social change” through WASH and Maternal and Child Health, organised jointly by WIN Foundation and the Kiran C Patel Centre for Sustainable Development- Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar.

Gupta. D, (2017) National-level conference on developing the Gender Vulnerability Index by the Ministry of Women and Child in collaboration with Plan International (India Chapter).

• Participated in pre-conference workshop titled “Shining a light into the black box of Social Marketing planning, management and evaluation” at World Social Marketing Conference’2022, Brighton, UK.
• Conducted a workshop titled “Role of Women in Commons/Asset/Resource Management: Case of Water Management” and also presented a paper titled “Social Norms and Socio-Physical realities of WASH” at Third International Conference on Maintenance and Intelligent Asset Management”, ICMIAM 2022, Rural Assets for Sustainable Development.
• Participated in workshop on “Developing Teaching case with a focus on Responsible Management & UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” conducted by New Delhi Institute of Management, 2021.

· “Pedagogy of Waterscape for Sustainable Development”, an Interactive workshop on How to bring water into mainstream Education, conducted by the U.S.-India Educational Foundation (USIEF).

• Pre-Conference workshop conducted by Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak, at 7th PAN IIM World Management Conference, 2019.
• Participated in a seven-day Faculty Development Program (FDP) conducted by the Institute of Rural Management Anand in 2018.
• Participated in a two-day workshop on “Case Writing” conducted by the Case Research Society of India at the Institute of Rural Management Anand, 2018.
• Participated in a technical workshop on “Shit flow Diagram” conducted by the Centre for Science and Environment, India, in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Mumbai, 2018.

· Impact Study on “Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation of NREGA in Tribal Area (ITDA) of Andhra Pradesh” in coordination with the Commissionerate of Rural Development, Andhra Pradesh.

· Study on ‘socio-economic condition and Watershed Development, in Ralegan Siddhi and Pimpalner District, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, in coordination with Hind Swaraj Trust, Ralegan Siddhi, Ahmednagar, Maharashtra.

· Study on ‘Child rights and Access to Justice’ in coordination with Praytna Sanstha, Dhoulpur, Rajasthan.

· Study the organisation ‘Mahila Shakti Kendra’ and its opportunities and challenges in convergence with ‘National Rural Livelihood Mission’ in coordination with the Centre for Microfinance and Livelihood, Assam.

· Pre- Campaigning survey project: People’s perception and their behaviour towards Conservation in Greater Manas for the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in coordination with Wildlife Trust of India.

· Undertook consulting assignments with KB Research, focusing on baseline and endline assessments, impact evaluations, and capacity-building projects for organizations such as UNFPA, HCL Foundation, and Save the Children.

· Member of Editorial Board at Health Marketing Quarterly, Taylor & Francis.

· Member of the Readers Committee at International Journal of AI & Knowledge Engineering (IJAIKE).

· Member of Core Committee for establishing Social Marketing Association of India (SMAI).

· Member and Youth Council Representative of Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI)

· Invited to guide the post-Graduation participant of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), Kolkata, for a dissertation titled “Evaluation of Sanitary Marketing Program in Rural India”.

· Invited as a member of the evaluation panel for India Innovation Growth Programme 2.0, an initiative by Lockheed Martin, Department of Science & Technology, and Tata Trusts, conducted by Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and evaluated project proposals under the theme “Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods”.

· Member of Editorial Board of Magazine “Manthan”, at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRD&PR), Hyderabad.

Vice-President of the Alumni Association of the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad

• Social Norms, Social Change I by the University of Pennsylvania and UNICEF on Coursera.
• Social Norms, Social Change II by the University of Pennsylvania and UNICEF on Coursera.

· Subsistence marketplace, Norms, and Networks, Collective action

·  Social Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC), Buying and Consuming Behavior, Public Policy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

· Education, Migration, Women-centered interventions, Gender and WASH, Public Health, Women and Child Development

· Bakul Foundation (Supporting initiatives for the Orphanage)

· Andh Apang Jan Sanstha (Supporting initiatives for physically challenged children)

• Gender: Female
• Nationality: Indian
• Trained Kathak Dancer

I, hereby, declare that the information mentioned above is correct to the best of my knowledge, and I bear the responsibility for the validity of the above-mentioned particulars.