Dr Rudra Pratap Singh is a trained social scientist, completing his PhD investigating the role of socio-economic status of teachers in primary school education from Banaras Hindu University, India. After completing his PhD, he worked for non-government organisations across India on a range of public health interventions associated with community health.
In 2008, Rudra joined Banaras Hindu University as a Project Manager/Social Scientist working on visceral leishmaniasis (VL) elimination operational research projects in Bihar, India funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIH), USA and the World Health Organisation. He continued his work in VL at the Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, India as a Project Manager from 2014-2016. During this time, he worked on a range of vector related operational research projects including: field validation of indoor residual spraying (IRS) quality assurance (QA) tools, monitoring of IRS performance and coordinating large-scale, multiple site studies across Bihar to determine optimal IRS strategies to achieve VL elimination.
Rudra's main focus lies in translational medicine and operational programmes, specialising in field-based epidemiology, entomology and social science research in India.
Rudra currently works on a VL multi-site monitoring and evaluation project, operating across three States (Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal) in India. Activities support the Indian National Vector Control Programme VL elimination efforts, focusing on effectiveness of vector control, insecticide resistance monitoring and IRS QA. He is also involved in the implementation of the Disease Data Management System (DDMS) for VL in India, capacity building of Indian researchers and coordinating field work to support development of novel quality assurance and diagnostic methods.