Swapnil Saxena is an architect and urban planner specialising in research and management. Currently, she is on secondment from her role as a Research Associate at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to CDRI for the Flagship Report on Disaster and Climate Resilient Infrastructure. In her current role, she anchors research and stakeholder coordination on nature-based solutions, the Global Infrastructure Resilience Survey among other elements of the Report. In her previous role at the National Institute of Urban Affairs, she led knowledge capitalization and capacity building for the EU and AFD-funded CITIIS programme – a complementary project of the Smart Cities Mission. Here, she also managed a 400-crore INR portfolio of projects across the housing, public space, education, and health domains. Before this, as a Researcher at Housing and Land Rights Network, she supported research, advocacy, and capacity building at the grassroots.

Swapnil is the recipient of the Gold Medal for Master’s in Planning (Housing) from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi and holds a bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Nagpur University