Dr. Rukmini Banerji has been with Pratham since 1996. She has extensive field experience in program design and implementation and has led many of Pratham's partnerships with state governments. Rukmini also led Pratham's research activities, including the well-known Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) effort from 2005 to 2014. She became CEO of Pratham Education Foundation in July 2015. Initially trained as an economist in India, she did her B.A. at St. Stephen's College and attended Delhi School of Economics. She was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University and completed her Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. In 2008, Rukmini was awarded the Maulana Abul Kalam Shiksha Puraskar by the Government of Bihar. She was the first recipient of this award. Also, she is the 2021 Yidan Prize awardee for education development. Originally from Bihar, she is now based between New Delhi and Pune. Rukmini writes frequently on education in both Hindi and English and enjoys creating stories for children.