Akil Amiraly is a Research Associate at the Center for Urban Sustainable Development at Columbia University (USA). He was previously a Research Associate at the Centre for Management Research (Institut Interdisciplinaire de l’Innovation, École Polytechnique-CNRS), where he completed his PhD. From 2018 to 2022, he was also a Research Associate at the Earth Institute at Columbia University as part of a research program conducted at the Water Columbia Center.
His research lies at the intersection of several fields: the management of networked public services in developing countries, the diffusion of technical objects related to urban infrastructure, and user consumption practices.
He studies the processes of appropriation and translation of management tools and models in water and electricity services, based on field surveys in Indian cities.
His doctoral and postdoctoral research, carried out with the support of the Veolia Environment Institute, focused on the installation of water meters and its consequences for users in Indian cities.
His current research focuses on the management of essential services (water, energy, mobility) in developing cities, and in particular on business model innovations for essential services. His latest publications includes « The difficult reappropriation of an ancient technical knowledge: Rainwater harvesting in Ahmedabad (India) »
