Protik is an economist and evaluation leader with 20 years of experience generating, assessing, and applying rigorous evidence to inform high-stakes investment and policy decisions across the Indo-Pacific, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Protik has conducted evaluation and research of development programs across several international public policy sectors including education; democracy, human rights, and governance; land formalization; agriculture; gender; and energy. Protik is an experienced project manager, who managed over $100M in global research and evaluation portfolios for U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He has a track record of leading multi-cultural teams and fostering collaboration to strengthen development effectiveness and institutional learning.

Protik currently advises national and state education leaders in the Federated States of Micronesia on a national teacher salary restructuring, analyzing pay structures across all four states and synthesizing the evidence on linking teacher pay to student outcomes. Before that, he directed the 10-year, $53 million USAID Building Evidence for Decision-Making (BE4D) project to support data-driven and evidence-based decision-making across USAID Missions, Bureaus, and Operating Units. In this role he co-designed USAID’s inaugural Biodiversity Impact Evaluation Learning Clinic to support evaluation strategies for conservation programs in Timor-Leste, Vietnam, Mozambique, Uganda, and Colombia. Protik also led evaluations of a project aimed at improving food safety standards in Egypt, a human trafficking prevention program in Cambodia, and a land formalization program in Colombia. In addition, Protik provided technical leadership for impact evaluations in Bangladesh (combatting violent extremism), the DRC (community-based trauma healing), and Tanzania (training for journalism students).

Prior to working at NORC, Protik led the evaluation of an early-grade literacy program in Rwanda and co-led the evaluations of school dropout prevention programs in India, Cambodia, Tajikistan and Timor-Leste. In addition, Protik was involved in an impact evaluation of a “girl-friendly” school construction program in rural Burkina Faso and of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s energy sector projects in Liberia and Tanzania. Protik started his career in Bangladesh, where he evaluated programs providing health services through satellite clinics in rural Bangladesh and conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of the Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Project.