Sidd Mandava

Background

About Sidd Mandava

Currently I am the Lead Behavioural Scientist in the Healthy Life team at Nesta where I focus on increasing access to healthy foods for all communities by improving the policy landscape and food environment rather than blaming individuals. In general, I aim to continue combining practical evidence with community engagement for better government and social outcomes. Most recently, I worked for the City of San Francisco to support Vision Zero traffic safety efforts, racial equity policies and programs, zero emissions fleet transitions, and transportation mode shift to increase access to safe and equitable transit options. Previously, I was an Advisor at the Behavioural Insights Team where we partnered with governments and NGOs to incorporate behavioral science into their policies and programs, conduct exploratory research and fieldwork, and run evaluations (mostly Randomized Controlled Trials) to inform their decision-making. Questions I am thinking about these days: 1. What it will take to introduce more experimentation and robust evaluation into government to understand the specific impacts of public sector programs and policies? How to incorporate behavioural science into policy design and complex systems planning? How to increase funding for local communities and governments without going through a laborious competitive process of fragmented grant applications that constrains decisions, takes resources away from public service provision, and produces accountability theater? What are all the different mechanisms through which the food industry shapes people's eating habits and how can we instead empower people to make the best decisions for themselves? How to regulate/reduce the dangers posed by ever-larger passenger vehicles? How can we test/advocate for governance by sortition (random selection of representatives)? Should we abolish the voting age?