Ridhi Kashyap

Ridhi Kashyap is a Professor of Demography and Computational Social Science at the University of Oxford, where she contributes significantly to demographic research through innovative computational approaches. She is affiliated with the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, where she co-leads the Digital and Computational Science strand. Her work bridges traditional demographic methods with cutting-edge computational techniques to address pressing social issues related to population dynamics and inequalities.

Dr. Kashyap's research spans multiple areas of demography, with particular focus on:

• Mortality and population health, including pandemic impacts on life expectancy
• Gender inequality, especially son preference and digital gender gaps
• Marriage and family dynamics in relation to educational expansion and gender norms
• Migration and ethnicity patterns using digital data sources
• Sustainable development goals related to digital access and gender equality

Her methodological expertise lies at the intersection of demography and computational social science. She leverages agent-based models, microsimulation, and machine learning techniques applied to novel data streams such as digital trace data from social media platforms. A notable example of her work is the digitalgendergaps.org platform, which nowcasts global digital gender inequalities in internet and mobile access - a key sustainable development goal indicator where official data is lacking. Her research demonstrates how computational approaches can fill critical data gaps and provide timely insights for policy decision-making.

Analysis of Dr. Kashyap's recent publications reveals a strong focus on digital demography and computational approaches to understanding population dynamics. Her work frequently examines gender inequalities through digital lenses, including analyses of LinkedIn data to understand professional gender gaps and social media data to track digital access disparities. She has made significant contributions to understanding pandemic mortality patterns, particularly in India and the US, and has pioneered methods for using social media data to nowcast demographic phenomena. Her research consistently bridges theoretical demographic concepts with practical computational methodologies.

Dr. Kashyap has been actively involved in several significant research initiatives, including leading the development of the Digital Gender Gaps dashboard and contributing to the creation of the World Cybercrime Index. Her work with the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science has positioned her at the forefront of computational demographic research.

Within her academic role, Dr. Kashyap supervises graduate students and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams across demography, computer science, and public health. She has secured funding for projects that leverage digital data to address demographic research questions, particularly those related to gender inequality and sustainable development goals. Her work with social media data platforms demonstrates innovative approaches to overcoming traditional data limitations in demographic research.

Dr. Kashyap co-leads the Digital and Computational Science strand at the Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science, where she oversees a team of researchers working at the intersection of demography and computational methods. Her team develops innovative approaches to using digital trace data for demographic research, with particular focus on gender inequality metrics and pandemic impact assessment. The Digital Gender Gaps project represents one of her team's flagship initiatives, providing near-real-time monitoring of a key sustainable development indicator.