Bishnu Bahadur Thapa is a PhD candidate in the Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice. His main interest lies in understanding how low and lower middle income countries (LMICs) can make progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and improve their population health outcomes. One of his projects investigates the extent to which cross-country variation in COVID cases and deaths is explained by countries' progress on UHC till date. Another project examines the role of microfinance initiatives for HIV care and treatment outcomes in Kenya. His project on implementation research on Nepal aims to understand early learnings from Nepal's Social Health Insurance scheme.