Arjun Appadurai is the Goddard Professor in Media, Culture and Communication at New York University, where he is also Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Knowledge. He is a Senior Research Partner at the Max-Planck Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity in Gottingen. He was previously Senior Advisor for Global Initiatives at The New School in New York City, where he also held a Distinguished Professorship as the John Dewey Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences. Arjun Appadurai was the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at The New School from 2004-2006. He was formerly the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of International Studies, Professor of Anthropology, and Director of the Center on Cities and Globalization at Yale University. Appadurai is the founder and now an advisor of PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research) in Mumbai, India.
Rahul Mehrotra is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design at Harvard University, Boston. A graduate of School of Architecture from the Harvard University, he is a practicing architect, urban designer, and educator. He has designed and executed many projects, from restoration of Chowmahal Palace in Hyderbad to drawing a conservation master plan for Taj Mahal. Rahul Meherotra has written and lectured extensively on architecture, conservation, and urban planning in India including several published books and monographs on Mumbai / Bombay. He divides his time between Boston & Bombay.
Zia Mody passed her Law from the University of Cambridge, UK in 1978, started her own practice from 1984 and started the firm, AZB & Partners, Advocates & Solicitors from April 2004 onwards. The firm has over 120 lawyers. Zia Mody is a Trustee of the Bahai School, New Era High School, in Panchgani. She is a Member of the CCI Committee on Capital Markets and a Member of the CII National Council on Corporate Governance and Regulatory Framework.
Zia Mody has been awarded the “Business Woman of the Year” by the Financial Express in the category of “The Best Knowledge Manager”. She has been selected as one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Indian Business by Business Today. She was selected as one of India’s 100 Most Powerful CEOS by the Economic Times. AZB & Partners was nominated as the best Indian National Law Firm 2006 by the International Financial Law Review.
Ramnath is a graduate of the Yale University School of Medicine, and he completed residency in internal medicine at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). He completed his undergraduate training at the University of Chicago, where he majored in cultural anthropology. Ramnath has long had an interest in the intersection of clinical medicine, public health, social change, and human rights.
Ramnath Subbaraman, MD, MSc, FACP
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine - Boston, MA
Attending Physician, Division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases, Tufts Medical Center - Boston, MA
Research Advisor, Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action, and Research (PUKAR) - Mumbai, India
Reetika Revathy Subramanian is a PhD candidate and Gates Cambridge Scholar at the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies. Her work, spanning different media and platforms, straddles the areas of early and forced marriages, labour migration, and the climate crisis in South Asia. She is the founder and host of the Climate Brides Podcast, co-creator of the multi-lingual comic book ‘Raindrop in the Drought: Godavari Dange’, and the co-convenor of the Grammars of Marriage and Desire research network. Her work has appeared in several publications including Hindustan Times, The Caravan, Scroll.in, People's Archive of Rural India, India Exclusion Report (2020) and Subversions Journal (2017). In recognition of her outstanding research and leadership, she has won multiple accolades, including the Bill Gates Sr. Prize 2022, Movements and Moments: Feminist Generations grant 2021, Bell Scholar Prize 2017, Chevening Award 2016, and the Charpak Scholarship of Excellence 2014.
ADVISOR- Youth and Urban Knowledge Production Program
Shreyashi Dasgupta is an Urban Geographer specialising in infrastructure and everyday politics in the global South. She is an alumna of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research PUKAR’s Youth and Advanced Research Fellowship. She was previously an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, where she was also appointed as a Research Associate at Homerton College. Shreyashi has a PhD and MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge and Girton College. She has worked as an international development consultant and carried out policy-oriented research with Itad UK, Observer Research Foundation, Aga Khan Agency for Habitat Mumbai, and BRAC Institute of Governance and Development in Bangladesh. Currently, she teaches at the Department of Geography and Planning, University of Liverpool.
