Education

PhD Economics, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Thesis: Essays on FDI Spillovers in China

Supervisor: Emeritus Professor Chris Milner and Alejandao Riano

Masters in International Economics, Lancaster University, United Kingdom

Bachelors in Accountancy and Finance, Mumbai University, India

Health Care Education

Certified Trauma-Informed Somatic Practitioner wherein I integrate somatic-based dialoguing with basic-level hands-on non-invasive craniosacral therapy. Certified by Quanta Health Care Solutions and Awareness Foundation.

Feldenkrais Online Series – Since 2020, I have been studying the Feldenkrais method with David Zemach Bersin and other Feldenkrais practitioners through their online weekly theme-based online-series. Learning the Feldenkrais method through online-series is not directed towards certification.

Work Experience

International

Orebro University, Sweden (Visiting)

University of Oxford, United Kingdom

University of Birmingham, United Kingdom

University of Nottingham, United Kingdom

Domestic (India)

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi

The Center for Advanced Financial Research and Learning (CAFRAL), Reserve Bank of India, Mumbai

Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai

Independently researching since 2015 (See website for more research information)

CV Cover Letter

2024 Publications

Solutions In(dia) Motions: India’s Transport and Logistics sector, (with Paresh Batra), Institute for Security and Development Policy, February 2024

2023 Publications

Mitigating Information Frictions in Trade: Evidence from Sweden’s EKNs Export Credit Guarantees (with Jackie M.L. Chan, Magnus Lodefalk, Aili Tang, Sofia Tano Zheng Wang) Journal of International Economics, November 2023, 145, 103831

Germany’s Strategy on China: A misguided focus on technology transfer, ARTNet (UNESCAP), September 2023

BRICS+ will benefit from opening way to free movement of workers, Nikkei Asia, September 2023

Diplomatic Overdrive, Force Magazine, April 2023 (Print Issue)

Contact

agarwana4@gmail.com

About Me

They say the right time is the time when you are ready. So I guess this appears to be my right time because I finally feel ready to write my story.

After falling down and picking myself up several times, knocking on several doors and learning from the experiences after walking in those doors, I had started to understand real world economics, and appreciate the difference between real world economics and academic economics, applying my academic knowledge as and when I could apply appreciatively. Various sections on this website provides more information on my professional journey.

About my Haitus

But just when I was enjoying the process and was able to find my feet on the ground, on 20th April 2017, I met with a car accident. It was not just another car accident. To give you an understanding on the severity, my accident made it to the front-page of Mumbai’s leading newspaper, Mumbai Mirror. For nearly two years all I did was wake up, and either go to the rehabilitation center or go to the yoga mat to do my rehabilitation “home-work”, and visit multiple doctors to understand why I couldn’t walk straight anymore. It was ample clear to me and my family that the doctors in Mumbai couldn’t provide the necessary support my rehabilitation required.  We then went to Australia for treatment to learn that I had sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the car accident which made it difficult for my body to integrate with my brain. Redesigning my rehabilitative program, and going through it diligently with expert support, I had indeed started to get better until yet another taxi slammed into my head in Dec 2019, and reversed the entire process. This time luckily I did not sustain orthopedic injuries. However, yet another brain injury is something I was not looking forward to. And to top this all, the COVID pandemic hit in 2020. So basically I was stuck at home with two traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) making everyday life very difficult to get by. This time around, however, I was better equipped in knowing how to deal with the fall out from a TBI.

For someone who did not know where the pelvis is and what a pelvic tilt meant in 2017, I have come a long way. I started to read and research on human anatomy, neuroplasticity, and trauma-related neuro-physiology. While the pandemic did make it difficult for rehabilitation in some ways, it did come as a blessing for me as it gave me the opportunity to connect and work with Feldenkrais practitioners around the world, some being Moshe Feldenkrais’s own student. With grace and ingenuity, they were able to guide me through the lessons over the internet making me aware of the untapped potential of my brain to heal my body. In addition, they also started conducting workshops online. Since 2020, I have been attending workshops every week to advance my knowledge on how to apply the Feldenkrais method in guiding my rehabilitation. Moreover, I started to actively participate in Feldenkrais Online Annual Summit and joined Feldenkrais Support Groups to understand the wide usage of this method.

Joining the workforce

In August 2022, as I write about my hiatus, after five years of picking myself up several times, knocking on several doors and learning from the experience after walking in those doors, I now feel confident in moving forward with my life. As I interact with David Zemach Bersin through the online classes, he once told me “Natasha, one day you will either become an excellent economist or an excellent Feldenkrais practitioner”. My trauma-informed craniosacral therapist, Zia Nath, suggested that I do a certification course on somatic intelligence as she thinks that I would make an excellent trauma-informed therapist. I am now training to be a trauma-informed somatic intelligence therapist using somatic dialoguing and cranial-sacro therapy, and who knows one day I may have the opportunity to be able to train for being a Feldenkrais practitioner. Until then, the learning through online weekly Feldenkrais series and summits continues.

As part of my healing and coming to terms with the events of my life over the last five years, there has been a gap in my career as a professional academic economist. Now that I am ready, I am looking for projects and open for collaborations.