Karan is a student at the University of Luxembourg and Luxembourg Institute of Socioeconomic Research (LISER) where he is working on understanding factors related to underrepresentation in economics academia and PhD field choices.

He has a master's degree in economics from the Centre for Development Studies (Trivandrum, India). Prior to enrolling in his Ph.D., he worked for six years and led various research and policy projects in education, early childhood, gender, rural livelihood, social protection policies, and urban governance.