Dr. C. Dheeraja, attained her doctorate in the discipline of social work and is currently working as Associate Professor & Head i/c for Centre for Social Audit and Centre for Wage Employment and Livelihood at National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad.

She has worked in various departments at different levels like CDPO in ICDS, Sector Team leader in a watershed programme of an NGO named Rural Development Trust (RDT), Teaching Assistant in the department of Rural Development and Social Work at Sri Krishna Devaraya University, Anantapur and then now as faculty at NIRDPR

Her areas of interest  and Research lies in Gender Issues in Rural Development, wage employment programmes in India specially, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Scheme (MGNREGS) and its impact on women and other vulnerable sections, Impact assessment studies, Corporate Social Responsibility, Social accountability mechanisms and social audit etc.

She has good number of Publications / articles / cases / reviews to her credit and the numbers are as follows. Articles in journals- 8, Chapters in the books- 14, Books-12, case studies- 4, Book reviews- 11, research reports- 24

She studied in Sri Aurobindo Centenary School at Tadpatri as 4^th batch student and is connected well to the school as old student as well as teacher for few months. Ever since her school days got associated with the preaching and ideology of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Her family members are also connected to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and always draws inspiration from them.