Aishwarya Machani
Aishwarya is a Policy Analyst at the Grantham Research Institute focusing on climate governance and public participation. She is currently working on the RETOOL project, which aims to advance our understanding of how to address the twin challenges of climate change and democratic decline.
Background
Prior to the Grantham Research Institute, Aishwarya worked at Iswe Foundation where she advocated for global deliberative participation and helped to build the Coalition for a Global Citizens’ Assembly. Before this, Aishwarya was a Next Generation Fellow and Consultant at the United Nations Foundation where she supported the UN Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda initiative and helped to build the Unlock the Future Coalition. During this time, she was also a columnist at World Politics Review focusing on the intergenerational dimension of global challenges.
Aishwarya is also a member of the Global Citizens’ Assembly Network, a collective that generates and disseminates research on the design, implementation, and evaluation of global deliberation initiatives.
Aishwarya holds an MSc in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics and a BA in History and Politics from the University of Cambridge. Her dissertation explored the potential for global deliberative mini-publics to promote ecologically reflexive global governance through an analysis of the 2021 Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis.
Research interests
- The role of deliberative participation, e.g. citizens’ assemblies
- The role of expertise, e.g. independent advisory bodies
- The relationship between climate change and democracy
- Global climate governance