Shankar Prasad
Adjunct Associate Professor of Public Administration

Shankar K. Prasad completed his PhD in Political Science from Brown University in 2006 with a focus on political learning within immigrant communities in the United States. As part of his doctoral work, Shankar conducted a national survey and numerous focus groups across the country to develop a detailed understanding of the process of partisan affiliation among newly entering communities. Shankar's dissertation "Red, Brown and Blue: The Political Behavior of Asian Indian Americans" analyzes the politicization of the Indian American community and suggests that religion is a primary factor in explaining the disproportionate association of this group with the Democratic Party. His dissertation has expanded to other research projects which focus on comparing the influence of religion on politics among Latinos, African Americans and other minority groups. He recently presented a paper at Columbia Law School on gendered perspectives on political learning and a book chapter on this subject is forthcoming. He is also currently working on publishing his dissertation.

While pursuing his academic interests, Shankar has also been actively involved in the private sector. After completing his PhD, he worked in a hedge fund in New York City and in 2008 left the fund to co-found a health informatics company for which he currently serves as the Chief Marketing Officer and Director of US Operations. His company develops and implements customized, research-enabling software and database systems for dental and medical health centers in India, Africa, the Middle East and North America.

His research and teaching interests include immigration policy; intersections of race, religion and politics; the American Presidency; financial regulation; quantitative analysis; research design; and public policy. Shankar graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers College in 2002 with a BA/BS (Honors) in Finance, Political Science and French.