Purnima obtained her PhD in Communication from the University of Kentucky, Lexington, and a post graduate diploma in marketing communication from MICA, Ahmedabad. She has several years of experience in academia, industry and the development sector and is currently leading the evaluation and capacity building portfolios at the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change (CSBC), Ashoka University. One of her key interests at CSBC involves working with several partners in the entertainment education (a tool for impacting beliefs and behaviours) domain to systematize concept testing, monitoring and feedback loops, impact evaluation, documentation and dissemination, such that content creation becomes evidence driven with clear behavioral indicators as benchmarks of assessment. Previously she has worked at UNICEF, UNFPA, Population Council and the University of Connecticut, where she led the design, monitoring and evaluation of several interventions to positively impact public health, nutrition, financial inclusion, sanitation and sexual health behaviour
