Nikhit D'Sa

Nikhit D’Sa is assistant professor and senior associate director for research at the Global Center for the Development of the Whole Child, housed in the Institute for Educational Initiatives of University of Notre Dame. He is a developmental psychologist whose current research focuses on better incorporating the lived experience of children, caregivers, and teachers into the development of context-specific assessments. He also researches how the settings around children can be better leveraged to support their learning and development. He has been a Kellogg Institute faculty fellow since 2020.

D’Sa has led the design and validation of two globally used assessments: the International Social and Emotional Learning Assessment (ISELA) and the Holistic Assessment of Learning and Development Outcomes (HALDO). He has also developed an online module on Practical Measurement: measurement that is focused on the needs of practitioners working with limited time and resources in low-resource and fragile contexts.

D’Sa holds a Doctor of Education in Human Development and a Master of Education in International Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as a Master of Arts in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has been the recipient of a Watson Fellowship, Davis Projects for Peace fellowship, and Spencer New Civics award.

ISP Advisee:
Ashwin Raghuraman

KDR Assistant:
Xinyi Cao