Santosh Kumar is an Associate Professor of Economics at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas, USA. Dr. Kumar is a development economist whose research investigates the relationship between children’s health, human capital, and economic development. Much of his work highlights the impact of early-life health on human capital with an emphasis on South Asia.

He has conducted randomized control trials of using school lunch program as the delivery channel to provide iron to anemic children in rural Bihar, India. He has explored the impacts of access to sanitation, microfinance, rural roads, and electricity on developmental outcomes.

Santosh received his B.A. in Economics from University of Delhi, M.A. in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, and Ph.D. in Economics from University of Houston (2009). He was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Center of Population Studies and Development and has also worked at Institute for Health Metrics (IHME) at the University of Washington, Seattle.

Santosh Kumar joined IZA as a Research Fellow in March 2021.