One of the co-founders of CMID, Baishali is an interdisciplinary researcher with international experience in gender and development. She is well-versed in large scale multi-country data analysis and has played a key role in the preparation of several research reports for Cheshire Disability International in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Sri Lanka and South Africa. An expert in qualitative and quantitative research, she was part of the District Level Household Survey-Reproductive and Child Health (DLHS-RCH): India team at International Institute for Population Sciences, India. Baishali has a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC), India. Currently Baishali serves as the honorary Director-Knowledge Management at CMID. She is the thematic head for education and gender at CMID. Baishali is also an Adjunct Faculty at the Centre for Socio-economic and Environmental Studies, Kerala.