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Curriculum Vitae

shwetha_mangalesh@brown.edu  |  Google Scholar  |  PubMed  |  LinkedIn

 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Health economics and comparative health systems. Cost, financing and delivery of newborn and child health screening programs in the United States, India and sub-Saharan Africa. Economic evaluation of artificial intelligence in care delivery. Health care in armed conflict and humanitarian settings.

 

EDUCATION

  • Master of Public Affairs (MPA), Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Brown University. Expected May 2027. Economics and statistics: Economics for Public Policy, Macroeconomics for Public Policy, Statistics for Public Policy, Program Evaluation, Public Budgeting and Management. Watson School study groups: Rep. Kathy Manning and Laurel Rapp (Fall 2025); J. Liam Wasley (Spring 2026); President Iván Duque (Fall 2026).
  • Master of Public Health (MPH), School of Public Health, Brown University. Expected May 2027. Courses: Biostatistics and Applied Data Analysis I and II; Methods in Epidemiologic Research; Health Care Financing; Digital Health and AI. Thesis: Artificial Intelligence for Humanitarian Health Systems: The Accuracy and Cost of Large Language Models in Global Surveillance of Attacks on Health Care (advisor Roy K. Aaron, MD). Practicum: Expanding Retinopathy of Prematurity Screening Services in Eastern Uganda, Mbale Regional Referral Hospital (mentor Dr Kathy Burgoine).
  • Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS), Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Raichur, India (2014). U.S. equivalent: Doctor of Medicine (World Education Services evaluation). Clinical electives at University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands, and University of Manchester, United Kingdom (2012).

 

RESEARCH APPOINTMENTS

  • Graduate Research Assistant to Bryce Millett Steinberg, PhD, Department of Economics, Brown University (2026). Research on reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa; built a national dataset for Zambia linking survey clusters to health facility and school locations for a prospective RCT; drafting grant proposals to the Gates Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.
  • Graduate Research Fellow, Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies, Brown University (2025 to present; mentor Roy K. Aaron, MD). Comparative study of prosthetic care after conflict related amputation across the US VA and Department of Defense system, the ICRC, the HALO Trust in Syria, and programs in Uganda and Israel, using a mixed methods review and key informant interviews on utility, cost and equity. Research on attacks on health care in Ukraine, including double tap strikes and medical neutrality.
  • Research Scholar, Pediatric Retina, Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University School of Medicine (2019 to 2024). Lead researcher for BabySTEPS 1 and 2, NIH funded studies of bedside retinal imaging in preterm infants; designed studies, analyzed data and led manuscripts.

 

OTHER APPOINTMENTS

  • Head of International Programs, Karnataka Internet Assisted Diagnosis of Retinopathy of Prematurity (KIDROP) Program, Bengaluru, India (2026 to present). Lead international programs and research collaborations for KIDROP, a telemedicine screening program for retinopathy of prematurity. Manage the Uganda program and its expansion to five general hospitals; set up screening programs in Harare, Zimbabwe in August 2026.
  • Policy Analyst (January to May 2026), UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, OHCHR; Brown MPA Policy in Action Project. Co-authored a submission on corporate governance and human rights, cited three times in the Working Group's report to the UN General Assembly (A/81/180).
  • Research Lead, EYESHA Foundation, London, United Kingdom (2024 to 2025). Designed newborn eye screening programs and guidelines with ministries of health in Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria.
  • Clinical Specialist, Rx Digi Health Platform, Bengaluru, India (2017 to 2018)
  • Clinical Doctor, Narayana Nethralaya Eye Hospital, Bengaluru, India (2014)

 

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING

  • Clinical Fellow, Pediatric Retina and Neonatal Eye Diseases, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC (2019 to 2024)
  • Clinical Scholar, Ophthalmology and Pediatric Retina, Narayana Nethralaya Postgraduate Institute of Ophthalmology, Bengaluru, India (2017 to 2019)
  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Pediatric Retina, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC (2014 to 2016)

 

HONORS AND AWARDS

  • Director's Fellowship, Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Brown University (2025)
  • NIH National Eye Institute Award, Advances in Pediatric Retina (2019, 2023)
  • Qais Farjo, MD Memorial Travel Award, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (2021)
  • Silver Award, Second Best Publication, All India Ophthalmological Society (2019)
  • Best of Show Award, American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus (2016)
  • Gold Award, Best Publication, All India Ophthalmological Society (2015)
  • Short Term Studentship, Indian Council of Medical Research (2009, 2010)

 

UNIVERSITY SERVICE AND LEADERSHIP

 

NATIONAL OR INTERNATIONAL SERVICE

  • Section Editor, Children (2025 to present)
  • Handling Editor, Frontiers in Medicine (2025 to present)
  • Associate Editor (Neonatology), Frontiers in Pediatrics (2026 to present)
  • Journal reviewer: Advances in Public Health; Frontiers in Public Health; Journal of Perinatology; Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine; Frontiers in Pediatrics; Frontiers in Medicine; JAMA Ophthalmology; British Journal of Ophthalmology; Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science; Translational Vision Science and Technology; Retina; Indian Journal of Ophthalmology

 

PUBLICATIONS

Google Scholar (November 2026): 1,546 citations, h-index 24. PubMed: 56 peer-reviewed articles, 11 as first or co-first author. Selected publications below; full list on Google Scholar.

 

Manuscripts in preparation

  • Mangalesh S, Huesmann TD, Kaadan A, Hayda R, Aaron RK. The end of medical neutrality? Lessons from armed conflict and its impact on healthcare in Ukraine. In preparation for submission to The Lancet Global Health.
  • Mangalesh S, Kaadan A, Huesmann TD, Aaron RK. Finance the journey, not the device: a policy framework for prosthetic services after conflict related amputation. In preparation for submission to Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

 

Screening programs, telemedicine and care delivery

 

Clinical research, first author

 

Policy reports and national guidelines

  • Lamarine C*, Mangalesh S*, Oberlin M*, Si P*. Corporate governance, business and human rights: C-suite responsibilities and access to remedy. Submission to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, call for input for its report to the General Assembly, 81st session. Brown University MPA Program; 2026. Cited in UN document A/81/180 (footnotes 30, 63 and 93).
  • Uganda Ministry of Health. National guidelines for retinopathy of prematurity. Contributor (research lead, technical assistance). Final draft September 2026; publication expected November 2026.

*Contributed equally.

 

INVITED PRESENTATIONS (SELECTED)

  • Mangalesh S, Toth CA. Retinopathy of prematurity: the future of imaging. 63rd Annual Meeting of the Ophthalmological Society of Taiwan, 2022. Invited presenters.
  • Mangalesh S. Telemedicine in retinopathy of prematurity and plus disease. Advances in Pediatric Retina, 2017. Invited speaker and session chair.
  • Mangalesh S, Sriganesh V. PubMed and biostatistics. Young Ophthalmologists United, 2014. Faculty.

 

OTHER PRESENTATIONS (SELECTED)

  • Mangalesh S, Owoo R, Burgoine K. Hope and Vision Beyond Mbale: expanding retinopathy of prematurity screening in eastern Uganda. Poster, MPH Practicum Poster Session, Brown University School of Public Health, October 2026.
  • Mangalesh S, Kaadan A, Huesmann TD, Aaron RK. Traumatic amputations due to blast injuries in conflict zones: a comparison of high and low resource communities. Poster, Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination Research Symposium and Workshop, Brown University, May 2026.
  • Mangalesh S, Huesmann TD, Kaadan A, Hayda R, Aaron RK. Russian targeting of healthcare resources in Ukraine: the end of medical neutrality? Poster, Civilian-Military Humanitarian Coordination Research Symposium and Workshop, Brown University, May 2026.
  • Mangalesh S. Utility and equity of assistive lower-limb technologies in conflict-related injuries. MPA Director's Fellow presentation, Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Brown University, March 2026.
  • Mangalesh S, Erol MK, Chen X, Vinekar A, Toth CA. Pediatric OCT imaging: new frontiers in tiny eyes. Pediatric Special Interest Group, ARVO Annual Meeting, 2016.
  • Mangalesh S, Vinekar A, Sainesh G. Estimating the cost of retinopathy of prematurity treatment and services: a mathematical model. ARVO Annual Meeting, 2015.
  • Mangalesh S, Vinekar A. Preventing blindness from retinopathy of prematurity in rural India is affordable: economic justification for expansion of screening in rural India. ARVO India Chapter, 2014.

 

GRANTS

  • Nora Kahn Piore Award, Brown University School of Public Health (2026). Hope and Vision Beyond Mbale: expanding retinopathy of prematurity screening in eastern Uganda. Role: Principal Investigator.
  • Seeing is Believing Grant, Standard Chartered Bank, London, United Kingdom (2017). Role: Co-Investigator.
  • Research to Prevent Blindness Grant, Duke University (2015). Role: Principal Investigator.

 

SKILLS AND LANGUAGES

  • Quantitative: regression analysis of survey and clinical data (linear, logistic, multilevel); analysis of weighted household survey data (DHS); quasi-experimental and pre/post program evaluation; diagnostic accuracy and agreement statistics (sensitivity, specificity, kappa)
  • Economic: cost and cost-savings analysis of screening programs; cost-utility modeling (decision trees, Markov models, DALYs, probabilistic sensitivity analysis)
  • Evidence: systematic and mixed methods reviews; key informant interviews
  • AI tools: agentic AI coding tools for policy data analysis, with instruction files, reusable skills, parallel subagents and Git version control; reproducible collection from public APIs (Federal Register, ReliefWeb) with documented provenance
  • AI methods: codebook development; dictionary, zero-shot and few-shot language model classification evaluated against held-out hand codes (accuracy, precision, recall, F1); topic models (LDA); open-weight models run locally compared with commercial models on agreement, cost and data privacy
  • AI governance: subgroup error analysis and competing fairness criteria (COMPAS); analysis of HHS systems in the 2025 federal AI use case inventory; AI governance frameworks and regulatory design (NIST AI Risk Management Framework, frontier AI regulation, government policy levers, geopolitics) through the Brown AI Safety Team policy fellowship
  • Research: protocol design, IRB and regulatory submissions, multisite study coordination, REDCap data management
  • Policy: policy analysis and briefs; national clinical guideline development with ministries of health
  • Software: R, Stata, SPSS, JMP; Python; REDCap
  • Languages: English (native); Hindi (full proficiency); French (professional working proficiency); Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam (conversational)
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