People

Current Students

Emera Bridger Wilson-Anthropology
Area: India
Title: Livelihoods in Motion: Understanding Tourism Work in Eastern Rajasthan
Emera's research examines the way that caste and class shape understandings of tourism, development and work among cycle rickshaw pullers in Bharatpur, Rajasthan. 

Stephen Christopher-Anthropology
Area: India
Stephen's research focuses on ethnicity, resource competition and cosmopolitanism in Dharamsala, India. Home to indigenous Gaddi tribals, Tibetan refugees and the Dalai Lama, and an ever-rising tidal wave of domestic and international tourism, Dharamsala is a small place nestled in the mountains with a lot going on.

Trudy DeLong-Anthropology
Area: India, Thailand
Trudy is researching post-operative experiences of people who have decided to sell kidneys, how body parts move from body to body, and the global commodification of specific bodies over others.

Faris A. Khan-Anthropology
Area: Pakistan
Title: Khwaja Sira: Culture, Identity Politics and Transgender Activism in Pakistan
Faris studies the culture and activism of transgender people in Pakistan who are now popularly known as khwaja siras. His dissertation focuses on the identity politics of khwaja siras, particularly on the ways in which their representational strategies serve as cultural constraints and assets in activism. His broader research interests include gender and sexuality, queer studies, activism, identity politics, and transnationalism in South Asia.

Jocelyn Kilmer-Anthropology
Area: India
Jocelyn's current research explores gender in medical education in urban north India.

Laurah Klepinger-Mathew-Anthropology
Area: India
Title: Globalized Yoga in South India: Flexible Labor and the Fashioning of Tradition
Laurah's dissertation research examines labor and relations in the contemporary production of Yoga in South India through an ethnographic study of an international Yoga organization.
 
 Madhura Lohokare-Anthropology
Area: India

Karen McNamara-Anthropology
Area: Bangladesh
Title: Politics and Practice of Health in Bangladesh
Karen studies politics, religion, and medicine in Bangladesh. She also researches the migration of Bangladeshis to the Middle East, its influences on ideas of Islam, and how this has affected perceptions and practice of health and medicine in Bangladesh.

Lalit Narayan-Anthropology
Area: India
Lalit's research addresses the social, political and economic factors that influence the practice of medical students and  doctors in India.

Jamie Portillo-Anthropology
Area: India
Jamie's doctoral dissertation explores the effects of conservation architecture and cultural tourism on local, indigenous understandings of heritage in Leh, Ladakh.

Moushumi Shabnam-Anthropology
Area: United States andBangladesh
Title: Construction of Muslim identity in the post 9/11 era
Moushumi investigates class, gender, ethnic and family backgrounds, and length of residency in the U.S. in the process of identity construction for the Muslim American immigrants in the post 9/11 U.S.

Ian Wilson-Anthropology
Area: India
Title: A Variously Understood Past: The Negotiation of Bharatpuri History
Having conducted textual, archival, and field research in Bharatpur District and Delhi, Ian addresses the remembering of the formerly Jat-ruled kingdom of Bharatpur. By examining individual, group, and institution-based engagements with Bharatpur's past, he considers those engagements' relations with conceptions of Jat community identity as well as the postcolonial complexities of memory and identity. His doctoral research was supported by a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship.

Nicole Wilson-Anthropology
Area: India

Mitul Baruah-Geography
Area: India
Mitul's research focuses on social movements in Assam, India, and how they influence and are influenced by environmental politics in the state, especially in the context of construction of large dams.

Parvathy Binoy-Geography
Area: India
Parvathy's dissertation investigates the historical production of dispossession and its relationship to specific geographies of waste in the context of neoliberal India. Her research interests include Marxism, neoliberalism, feminist geography, and social movements in South Asia.

Sandeep Banerjee-English
Area: India
Sandeep examines colonial and anti-colonial landscapes of British India, and their role in the spatial production of the Indian nation-space. His intellectual interests include the literature and culture of the British Empire in South Asia, as well as materialist approaches to culture, space, and globalization in contemporary India. He is currently a Dissertation Fellow at the Humanities Center of Syracuse University.

Tanushree Ghosh-English
Area: Britain and India
Tanushree works on liberal subjectivity and reform in late nineteenth century Britain and India. Her work also deals with colonial studies, especially liberal imperialism.

Auritro Majumder-English
Area:India
Title: Communist reactions to and representations of the Indian nation-state, 1930-1980
Auritro's dissertation considers a re-appraisal of Marxism in South Asia, through the exploration of relations between the Communist Left and "culture" in India, with emphasis on the Naxalite movement. It brings together postcolonial studies, Marxist theory and cultural studies, esp. the issues of representation and translation, into conversation with each other.

Gohar Siddiqui-English
Area: India
Gohar's research examines the Bollywood remakes of Hollywood films as sites of global and cultural negotiation between the two industries. Her work focuses on the cultural identity and constructions of femininity in the Hindi remake.

Ruma Sinha – English
Area: India
Ruma’s research interests include postcolonial and anticolonial studies, critical race studies, and gender studies. She is especially interested in Dalit women’s narratives and how they engage in a discourse of dissent.

 Rajyasree Banerjee-History
Area: India
Rajyashree research concerns tribal labor migration in India from the eastern part of India to the Tea gardens in Assam and Dooars region.

Sravani Biswas-History
Area: India and Bangladesh
Sravani works on the environmental history of South Asia specifically focusing on natural disasters (cyclones and floods) in Bangladesh.

William Jackson-History
Area: South Asia 
William Jackson is studying the impact of the Deobandi-Barelvi rivalry on the politics of Partition in India (especially from 1921 to 1947), as well as its impact on the politics of the region (especially Pakistan) from 1947 to 2001.

Punit Arora-Management
Area: India
Punit's research focuses on the Indian civil services, public and corporate governance in India, and business policy issues.

Alicia Wright-Media Studies
Area: India
Alicia's broad research interest examines how media present social movements along the protest paradigm, which posits that mainstream media typically show participants in social movements acting deviant from normal behavior. Applying this in a South Asian context, she focuses on the coverage of hunger strikes in Indian newspapers, considering newspaper articles on specific movements, for example, Irom Sharmila's strike against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Anna Hazare's protest against corruption in the government and the Lokpal Bill. 

Daniel Cheifer-Religion
Area: U.S.
Daniel is interested in modern Hindu traditions, especially in relation to globalization and cosmopolitanism. His current research focuses on the epistemological shift indicated by contemporary gurus’ use of “science” as an explanatory category. 

 Soonki Lee-Religion
Area: India
Soonki's research interests include Hinduism and gender, focused on women's storytelling in India.

Medani Bhandari-Social Science
Area: India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh
Title: Exploring the Role of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on National Program Development in Sustainable Development and Biodiversity Conservation: A Comparative Study of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
In his dissertation, Medani explores how the IUCN goes about building sustainable development (SD) programs in states with different capacities. He also investigates how biodiversity conservation priorities and approaches are promoted and addressed by the IUCN at various scales from the local to international.

Natasha Susan Koshy-Social Science
Area: India
Natasha's areas of interest include gender and rural livelihoods, with a focus on agriculture and food.

Neelakshi Medhi-Social Science
Area: The South and East Asian Region
Title: Adoption of Environmental Regulations and Diffusion of Environmentally Sound Technologies
Neelakshi focuses on the adoption of instruments to regulate the environment and its implications for global containment of air pollution. This study conducts a cross-country assessment of regulations and technology flows (in 14 countries over 16 years) encompassing the South and East Asian region, starting from Pakistan on the west to South Korea in the east.

Kasturi Gupta-Sociology
Area: India
Title: Corporate Social Responsibility and Labor: A New Mode of Governance in India
Kasturi's research looks at current CSR techniques of Indian companies and its effect on labor.

Liz Mount-Sociology
Area: India
Liz’s research interests are women’s and queer/LGBT movements and activism in India, particularly in relation to notions of globalization and cosmopolitanism. Her work engages with transnational feminist analyses and praxis, postcolonial studies and critical race studies.

Bernadette White-Sociology
Area: India
Bernadette's research interests include rural sociological issues, developmental sociology, and political sociology in India.

Santosh Khadka-Writing Program
Area: US
Title: Rhetorical Multiliteracies for a Globalized Classroom
Santosh explores, theorizes and experiments how rhetorical multiliteracies—print, new/media, digital, visual, computer, cultural and technological—contribute to effective learning and composing in the globalized US classroom.