This is an opportunity for early career scholars at JGU and researchers from external organizations to be associated with IDEAS (and its constellations) in collaborative research and knowledge building and outreach initiatives.
Ph.D Candidate & SRF, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
Shyam Kumar is a PhD student and Senior Research Fellow at the Dr. K.R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi. His academic interest revolves around caste, democracy, reservation, social justice, and electoral politics in India. Shyam is a Member Associate at IDEAS and is involved with the Politics, Society & History Constellation.
Independent Researcher
Dr. Renu Singh holds a Ph.D. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi (2023) and has extensive experience in research, teaching, and feminist knowledge production. A recipient of the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral and Professional Research Fellowship. Her work spans gender studies, health rights, technology, biodiversity, and social justice, with professional engagements across academic institutions and civil society organisations including Ashoka University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, and Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Visiting Faculty, Bennett University, Greater Noida
Dr Tushar Ghadage is an interdisciplinary researcher whose work critically examines the intersections of caste, religion, and social transformation in India. He has served as a Visiting Research Fellow at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan and a Consultant for the Initiative for Caste Equity at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. He holds a PhD in Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, an MPhil in Anthropology from the University of Hyderabad and an MA in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, his research examines subaltern religious movements and systemic marginalisation in rural Western India. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes in the areas of sociology of religion, social movements, and critical caste studies. He is currently working on a research project titled “Contested Devotion: Caste Dynamics and Struggle Over the Ritual Sphere in Warkari Tradition in Western India.”
Independent Researcher PhD, Sociology, South Asian University
Sobia Bhat is a PhD in Sociology from South Asian University, New Delhi. In her doctoral research, she worked on “Poetics of Space: Mosque, Women, and Islam,” where she explores questions of gender, religion, spatiality, and everyday Islamic practices through ethnographic data and theoretical approaches. She was awarded Gold Medal during her M.A. in Sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia University, and holds an undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Physics, which further inform her interdisciplinary academic orientation.
Doctoral Candidate (UGC-SRF),
UNESCO Chair for Peace and Intercultural Understanding,
Malaviya Centre for Peace Research,
Banaras Hindu University, India.
Sidhyendra Sisodia is a Senior Research Fellow at the UNESCO Chair for Peace and Intercultural Understanding, Malaviya Centre for Peace Research, Banaras Hindu University. His research focuses on International Relations, Security Studies, Indian foreign policy, maritime security, and the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean Region. His doctoral thesis, titled “India-China Security Dilemma in the Indian Ocean Region: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Maldives, Mauritius, and Seychelles", examines Sino-Indian strategic competition, and small-state responses, and evolving security dynamics in the Indian Ocean Region. He has published peer-reviewed and SCOPUS-indexed research in reputed journals, including India Review, Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies, Journal of Strategic Security, and International Journal of Asian Studies. His wider academic and policy writings engage with the Indo-Pacific, health diplomacy, and ocean governance.
Assistant Professor at Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Hyderabad
Basit Abdullah is an Assistant Professor at Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Hyderabad. He has completed his Ph.D. in Economics from Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Thiruvananthapuram. Basit's research interests lie at the intersection of development, labor, and environmental economics, with a specific focus on structural transformation, informality, unemployment, and green jobs. During his doctoral studies, he was a Visiting Ph.D. Fellow at the United Nations University - World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) in Helsinki, Finland (2024), and at the University of Southampton, UK (2023). Before joining IMT, Basit worked as a Senior Programme Associate at the International Forum for Environment, Sustainability, and Technology.
trans/feminist activist-scholar, poet, data scientist, and street educator, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Security For All
PhD candidate at the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament in Jawaharlal Nehru University
PhD candidate at the Centre for International Politics, Organization, and Disarmament (CIPOD)
Associate Professor in the Department of Political Sciences and International Relations of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina
Professor at the World Politics Department at St. Petersburg State University, Russia.
Assistant Professor at the School of Social Sciences, Federal University of Goiás.
Research Fellow at Research Center in Economic Analysis and International Economic Development (CRANEC), Italy
Assistant Professor of Contemporary History at the Universidad Austral de Chile
PhD candidate and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
Alok Ranjan is a PhD candidate and Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His doctoral research centres on the spatial-affective engagements between the state apparatus and impacted populations in the context of coal mining projects and land dispossession in Jharkhand. This project explores non-institutional and materialist forms of rural democracy under contingency concerning the lifeworld. Besides the doctoral research, his parallel research interest spans fields of critical citizenship, popular constitutionalism, and Adivasi Studies. He has published academic essays on these themes in several journals, including Postcolonial Studies, Studies in Indian Politics, and Economic and Political Weekly. Besides, his public commentaries have appeared in Kafila, Cafe Dissensus, and Armchair Journal.
PhD Scholar, Delhi Universit
Mr Abhishek Kumar is a dedicated Research Scholar and Research Assistant with a strong interdisciplinary academic background in Political Science and African Studies. He has completed an M.Phil. degree and am presently pursuing doctoral research. His academic and research engagements primarily focus on tribal studies, indigenous handicraft traditions, socio-economic transformation, strategic autonomy, and India–Africa relations within the contemporary global order. He possess extensive experience in government and institutionally funded research projects, contributing significantly to policy-oriented analysis, academic inquiry, and interdisciplinary scholarship.
His doctoral research undertakes a comparative study of the socio-economic role of handicrafts among the Zulu community of South Africa and the Dhokra tribal community of Chhattisgarh, India, with particular emphasis on cultural sustainability, indigenous knowledge systems, and community empowerment. He has presented research papers at numerous national and international conferences and have published scholarly articles in reputed academic journals. His academic interests further encompass governance studies, geopolitical strategy, public policy, indigenous development, and civilizational discourse. He remains deeply committed to intellectual engagement and to advancing research that contributes to inclusive development and global academic dialogue
Harsh Tripathi is a Ph.D. candidate and Junior Research Fellow in Political Science at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. His research interests lie in intellectual history, modern Indian political thought, and the politics of education, with a particular focus on the formation and transformation of political ideas, concepts, and educated political subjects in modern India. His broader academic interests include political theory, the history of political ideas, and the relationship between education, society, and politics. In August 2024, he interned with the National Human Rights Commission of India, where he undertook a research project titled 鈥淧olice Reforms, Prison Administration and Human Rights.鈥� The project was awarded the First Prize along with a Cash Reward by the commission. He has also presented research papers at national seminars and published work engaging with questions of the welfare state, constitutional morality, and contemporary Indian politics.
Dr. Monika is an early-career researcher currently serving as a Senior Research Associate at the Comparative Civilization Forum, USA. She recently completed her PhD under the joint supervision of IIT Indore, India, and Boston University, USA. Her research interests include nationalism, democracy, and caste consciousness in India. She is currently co-editing a volume on Demos and Demophilia: A Popular Culture Approach. Her research has been published in leading journals, including National Identities, Peace Review, Geography Compass, Democratization, Parliaments, Estates and Representation, and Comparative Civilizations Review.
Dr Sreejith Murali holds a PhD in Sociology from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay. His academic research work spans areas of educational inequality, middle class formation and caste, educational governance and twentieth-century history of education. Over the past fifteen years, he has worked in education as a practitioner in the development sector, a qualitative research consultant, and a teacher. He has published articles and book reviews in academic journals, including Contemporary Education Dialogue, and public-facing academic blogs, including Ala-Kerala Studies Blog, Doing Sociology and SASE India.
Misbah Rashid holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests lie at the intersection of gender, law, and Islamic jurisprudence, with a particular focus on the fatwa as a juridico-social instrument. Her work has examined fatwas concerning women and blasphemy, exploring their role in shaping religious practice, legal discourse, and social relations in India. Her research draws on critical historiography and ethnographic methods to examine the relationship between law, society, and lived experience. Her current research explores the gendered dimensions of labour, precarity, and mobility through the experiences of women e-rickshaw drivers in Delhi.
Soumodip Sinha, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Alliance University, Bengaluru. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi (2023), where his doctoral research explored social location and political assertion through an ethnography of everyday student activism in Delhi. He also holds an M.Phil. and M.A. in Sociology from the University of Hyderabad, and a B.A. (Honours) in Sociology from St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.
Soumodip鈥檚 research centres on student politics, digital activism, and higher education in India, with particular attention to how young people negotiate political identity and mobilization in postcolonial and digital contexts. His work has been published in journals such as Education, Citizenship and Social Justice and in edited volumes including The Palgrave Handbook of 91视频 Social Problems and Blood Ties and Politics. He has presented his research at international conferences hosted by institutions including the London School of Economics, the University of Manchester, and the Latin American Studies Association, and received the Best Student Paper Award at the 91视频 South Graduate Student Conference (George Mason University) as well as a travel bursary from the British Journal of Sociology.
Beyond academic publishing, Soumodip writes for public platforms such as The Quint and University World News, engaging broader audiences on themes of youth activism, higher education, and governance. He is a Life Member of the Indian Sociological Society (ISS) and serves on the Academic Precarity Task Force of the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA).
Pallavi Sanil is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Sociology at the Central University of Punjab, India. Her research examines the intersectional experiences of marginalised groups, with a particular focus on disability, gender, caste, and religion. Grounded in a commitment to social justice, her work explores the structural forces that shape systemic inequality and exclusion. She investigates the socio-political and economic factors influencing access to education, social mobility, dignity, citizenship, and rights, foregrounding lived experiences at the intersectional margins and examining how power is embedded within social, cultural, and legal systems. She has published numerous book reviews, review essays, film reviews, newspaper articles, and research articles across platforms including The Sociological Review Magazine, LSE Review of Books, Sociology, Contemporary Social Sciences, Teaching Sociology, Higher Education, Network Magazine, The Print, and others.
Dr. Poola Devendra is a political scientist whose research focuses on democratic institutions, political behaviour, public policy, and technological change. He recently completed his PhD in Political Science at the Centre for Economic and Social Studies (CESS), Hyderabad, affiliated with Telangana University. His doctoral research examined the emergence of political consultancies in India and their impact on party organisation, electoral competition and democratic representation. His broader research interests include Indian politics, comparative politics, public policy and digital politics. Methodologically, he employs a mixed-methods approach combining qualitative fieldwork, elite interviews, survey research, experiments, and quantitative analysis. Dr. Devendra has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Humanities & Social Sciences Communications, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and Discover Environment and Social Change. His current research examines the impact of technological change on political participation, democratic accountability, and digital citizenship, with a particular focus on India and the 91视频 South.
Expand your research skills and knowledge by working with interdisciplinary experts.
Incorporating your research agenda in existing constellations can help expand your publication profile.
Connect with IDEAS collaborators and advisors for better professional outreach, expanding your research, teaching, fellowships, and grants.
MAs are encouraged to formulate research proposals for projects that align with the interests of their chosen constellation or to participate in ongoing projects.
MAs will collaborate with project leads within their constellation to ensure the successful completion of listed projects.
MAs may aid Senior Research Fellows (SRFs) in crafting research proposals, project design, data analysis, and other related tasks.
MAs are also welcome to contribute to the organization of executive learning programs, workshops, seminars, and conferences pertinent to their IDEAS-research constellation.