CV

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Experience

Economist — Pricing & Demand Analytics

Digonex (Pricing Optimization Consultancy)  |  Indianapolis, IN  |  Jul 2023 – Nov 2025

Served as primary economist and strategic advisor across a portfolio of 20+ ongoing client accounts in the U.S., U.K., and Canada, delivering pricing strategy, demand elasticity analysis, and product recommendations across the full engagement lifecycle.

  • Generated $27M in cumulative incremental revenue (+34.6% over the engagement period) across 20+ ongoing client accounts through demand elasticity estimation, discrete choice analysis, and pricing optimization.
  • Delivered $4.2M in pricing impact for a single client over three months by implementing dynamic pricing against real-time demand signals. Identified willingness-to-pay above the client's internal price ceiling, built the counterfactual case for lifting it, and earned expanded advisory scope as a result.
  • Grew a client's annual revenue from $15.5M to $23M in 2025 by calibrating pricing dynamically to product value enhancements introduced during the year, adjusting recommendations as new demand data accumulated over the year.
  • Designed a segmented pricing experiment that produced an unexpected cross-segment revenue lift. Discounts targeted at one customer group drove higher purchase volume from a second group, producing net revenue growth that exceeded single-segment projections.
  • Built a centralized pricing analytics infrastructure integrating 100+ datasets across the entire client base, substantially reducing turnaround time on reporting and counterfactual analysis. Designed and executed A/B testing protocols to validate pricing recommendations causally before full deployment.

Doctoral Researcher, Department of Economics

Iowa State University  |  Ames, IA  |  Aug 2018 – May 2023

Dissertation: "A Dynamic Model of U.S. Beef Cattle" — dynamic structural estimation, rational and naive price expectations, counterfactual simulation, policy impact analysis.

  • Developed dynamic structural economic models of the U.S. beef cattle industry integrating agent optimization, biological constraints, age and gender distribution, and market clearing conditions across 14 datasets.
  • Designed a semi-genetic optimization algorithm combining biological population dynamics with market equilibrium conditions to calibrate the structural model.
  • Produced 10-year demand and pricing forecasts outperforming USDA benchmark projections by 5%, enabling scenario-based policy analysis for disease outbreak response and national traceability program design.
  • Estimated short-run and long-run producer surplus impacts of a mandatory national animal identification and traceability system under varying cost-sharing programs and adoption rates, providing quantitative guidance for agricultural policymakers.
  • Led three end-to-end research projects from structural estimation and counterfactual simulation design through publication and presentation at three national economics conferences (WAEA 2022, AAEA 2021, AAEA 2020).

Software Developer & Data Analyst

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach / Department of Agronomy  |  Ames, IA  |  May 2014 – Jul 2018

  • Developed two web-based market analysis tools in Java and SQL for beef and pork producers, deployed and used daily across the U.S. and nine international countries. Improved product performance by 15% through systematic code review and debugging.
  • Conducted cost-benefit analysis on 15,000 records identifying pricing adjustments that improved revenue by 2%.
  • Recommended statistical methods and designed experiments for researchers across multiple departments, contributing to three industry-facing publications.

Systems Engineer, Business Platforms

Infosys Limited  |  Hyderabad, India  |  Mar 2012 – Dec 2013

  • Led a team of six engineers on an online banking software product as project lead, assigning responsibilities, developing modules alongside the team, and coaching members through systematic test case reviews.
  • Presented business analysis findings to senior management and secured project funding. Automated enterprise application deployment into production, increasing team productivity by 10%.

Education

  • Ph.D., Economics — Iowa State University, 2018 – 2023
    Dissertation: "A Dynamic Model of U.S. Beef Cattle" — Dynamic structural modeling, demand estimation, counterfactual simulation, agricultural policy analysis
  • M.S., Statistics — Iowa State University, 2016 – 2018
  • M.S., Information Systems — Iowa State University, 2014 – 2016
  • B.Tech., Electronics and Communication Engineering — CVR College of Engineering, India, 2007 – 2011

Research & Publications

Working Paper

  • Poddaturi, D.R. (2026). Profit-Aware Pricing in Two-Sided Marketplaces: Demand Elasticity, Cost Uncertainty, and Customer Lifetime Value in Brazilian E-Commerce. Working paper. Details  |  PDF  |  SSRN

Conference Presentations

  • Paper Presentation, Western Agricultural Economics Association – Santa Fe, NM, June 2022. A Dynamic Assessment of the Economic Impacts of a Foot-and-Mouth Disease Outbreak on the U.S. Beef Cattle Industry. PDF
  • Poster Presentation, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association – Austin, TX, August 2021. Implementing a National Animal Identification and Traceability Program: Economic Assessment using a Dynamic Model of U.S. Beef Cattle.
  • Paper Presentation, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association – Virtual, August 2020. A Dynamic Model of U.S. Beef Cattle.

Industry Publications

  • Poddaturi, D.R., Dahlke, G., Euken, R., Schulz, L. (2018). Development of a CRUSH Margin Calculator for Beef and Pork Markets. Iowa State University Animal Industry Report. ASL R3221.
  • Dahlke, G., Poddaturi, D.R., Loy, D. (2017). ISU Beef Feedlot Monitor version 3. Iowa State University Beef Center. AS 13A.
  • Dahlke, G., Poddaturi, D.R. (2017). ISU Sheep Feedlot Monitor. Iowa State University Beef Center. AS 7.
  • Poddaturi, D.R., Dahlke, G., Johnson, S. (2016). Management Minder — A Web Based Data Management Application (Concept). Iowa State University Animal Industry Report. ASL R3052.
  • Poddaturi, D.R., Dahlke, G., Johnson, S. (2016). Management Minder — A Web Based Data Management Application (Technical Details). Iowa State University Animal Industry Report. ASL R3051.
  • Poddaturi, D., Johnson, S., Dahlke, G.R., Blasi, D.A., Hanzlicek, G. (2016). Development of a web-based calendar tool for scheduling beef cow management activities. J. Anim. Sci. 94(Suppl5):277-278. doi:10.2527/jam2016-0586.

Technical Skills

Econometrics & Methods
Demand elasticity estimation, structural econometric modeling, causal inference, discrete choice models, experimentation, propensity modeling, CLV modeling, counterfactual simulation, panel data methods, profit optimization, dynamic pricing, sensitivity analysis, scenario planning

Programming & Tools
Python, R, Stata, SQL, Java, LaTeX, Git, RStudio, Visual Studio