Nivedita has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Engineering from the (University of Nottingham, UK) and her masters from Arizona State University (ASU) in Sustainability. Her PhD is in Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering (ASU), where her interests lay in applying circular economy principles for Solid Waste Management (SWM); specializing in plastics and landfill mining. Nivedita has worked on sustainability and renewable energy for the United Nations in Vienna (Austria), with NGOs in India on slum sanitation, and for the Government of Singapore's Solid Waste Branch. She is Austrian and Indian, thus speaks fluent German, English, Kannada and Tamil. She also has a working proficiency of Spanish and Hindi.