Priya Parkash is an investment banking professional, passionate about the intersection of data, technology, and research, particularly in the healthcare and clean energy space.
Parkash graduated cum laude from Duke with a double major in Statistical Science and Economics, along with a minor in Comparative Religions. She was involved in research throughout her four years at Duke, ranging from an archival deep dive into Duke’s architectural and budgetary developments during the Cold War to using Twitter sentiment to explore beliefs surrounding female reproductive health. She studied green energy policy at the Ecologic Institute in Germany during her freshman summer, which prompted her to complete an honors thesis about the relationship between changing polarity of public opinion and EU carbon permit pricing.
Parkash is passionate about empowering women and people of color in STEM and has developed a prestigious STEM retention fellowship (Duke SPIRE) that boasts a living-learning model and robust industry mentorship program. She advocates for improved relations between Muslim-majority countries and the U.S. post 9/11 in collaboration with the U.S. State Dept.’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Her social start-up trains women in rural Pakistan to make low-cost, reusable menstrual hygiene products with the aim of establishing industry, providing economic opportunity, and facilitating access and affordability.