Darshil Shah

Darshil Shah, M.Sc. 

Research Associate & PhD Student

Darshil Shah is a PhD researcher at the Institute of Behavioral Science and Technology (IBT) at the University of St. Gallen, working under Prof. Christian Hildebrand. His work sits at the intersection of behavioral science, artificial intelligence, and digital technology, with a focus on understanding and influencing human decision-making in complex real-world systems.

Before joining IBT, Darshil worked across academia, policy, and industry. He was a Senior Research Scientist at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, where he led an ICMR-funded implementation research project working with government stakeholders to inform suicide prevention policy among school and college students in India. Previously, he was a Research Associate at the Centre for Social and Behavioral Change (Ashoka University), where he designed behavioral measurement tools and conducted large-scale field research on social norms and decision-making.

Darshil holds an MSc in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience from Freie Universität Berlin and a BA in Psychology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. Outside research, he enjoys theatre and cinema, and has spent several years writing and directing plays, interests that continue to shape how he thinks about storytelling, human behavior, and culture.