THE LAKSHMI MITTAL AND FAMILY
Cover Credit:
Garima Gupta
Thank you for shopping with us! 01 (Detail)
2020
Color pencils and graphite on gateway paper
8.3 x 11.6 inches / 21 x 29.5 cm
Garima Gupta was a Visiting Artist Fellow at the Mittal Institute in Fall 2023.
July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024
Countries we work with: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and diaspora populations from these countries
Main offices: Cambridge (USA) and New Delhi (India)
• Representatives in Kathmandu (Nepal) and Lahore (Pakistan)
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University (The Mittal Institute) engages in interdisciplinary research to advance and deepen the understanding of critical issues relevant to South Asia and its relationship with the world. The Mittal Institute collaborates with faculty members, students and in-region institutions to achieve its
ends. With approximately two billion people facing similar challenges and opportunities throughout South Asia, there is a critical need for solutions and systems to support such a significant global population.
The Mittal Institute’s programs and projects are working to actively address issues impacting the region and fill
knowledge gaps in key areas. Through research conducted by students and faculty; partnerships with governments and organizations; and seminars held on campus and across the world, the Mittal Institute seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the challenges facing the region.
Letter from the Director
HIGHLIGHTS
GOVERNANCE 42 06 32
2023–24 Highlights 08
In the News 10
2023–24 Digital Metrics 11
FACULTY
Climate
Climate Platform 14
Health
The Lancet Citizens’ Commission 18
India Digital Health Network 20
Education
Educational Initiatives Empower Underprivileged Students in India 22
Arts
Arts at the Mittal Institute 24
Multimedia Exhibition
HUM SAB EK (We Are One) 28
Faculty Grants 30
Faculty Grant Spotlight: The History of Punishment in India 31
STUDENTS
Research, Language, and Internship Grants 34
Student Spotlight: Imaan Mirza 36
Student Organization Grants 38
Seed for Change Competition 40
SCHOLARS
Fellows, Visiting Scholars, and Associates 44
Fellow Spotlight: Anu K. Antony 52
EVENTS
Overview 56
Event Highlights 2023–24 57
It's been another extraordinary year. The Mittal Institute has now become a well-known Harvard hub for all things South Asia. Each year, faculty and students come to us with new and fascinating collaborations. Our full events calendar has attracted standing-room-only attendance, with discussions covering everything from arts to economics to science. We also continue to support new and important research on climate change, health care, education, and arts, and we’re excited to share all of it with you in this report.
We have all felt the impacts of climate change in our communities, with South Asia being particularly hard hit. The Mittal Institute Climate Platform examines these impacts and has made significant strides over the last year, including publishing a policy brief ahead
of COP28; launching new research on the impact of heat on informal workers in India; and working towards making climate data more accessible. The Center for International Development and the Salata Institute at Harvard have been instrumental partners, along with many in-region partnerships, and more are to come.
For the past four years, the Mittal Institute has supported research conducted by the Lancet Citizens’ Commission that puts forward pathways to universal healthcare in India. The report is pending peer review by The Lancet, and we look forward to sharing its findings next year. Meanwhile, our longest-running health initiative, India Digital Health Network, has started a new chapter with a first-of-its-kind study addressing the digital health needs of
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
over 150 stakeholders from community health workers to investors.
This year has also been a significant one with elections in South Asia, and we launched several events in New Delhi and on campus to deepen discussions and understanding of these key issues. We also dove into the political crisis in Sri Lanka with a two-part series and were pleased to have the Harvard Gazette cover it to bring the discussion to a wider audience.
The Mittal Institute continues to fund faculty projects across the region that connect the expertise at Harvard to on-the-ground needs. Last year, three faculty-led initiatives co-sponsored by the Mittal Institute – Scienspur, the Program for Scientifically Inspired Leadership (PSIL), and PreTexts – expanded their efforts to bring
high-quality education to underprivileged students in India.
Finally, our Arts and Architecture Program continues to grow. For example, the State of Architecture in South Asia hosted architects from every country in South Asia for a conference in New Delhi in December. It was a quintessential Mittal Institute moment that exemplified our ability to reach across borders to bring experts together.
As we move forward, we will continue to explore new avenues for impactful scholarship, ensuring that our work resonates across Harvard and beyond. Of course, all of this is possible because of our dedicated staff in Cambridge and in-region, our faculty collaborators, supporters of the institute, and many Harvard partners. My greatest privi-
lege as director of the Mittal Institute has been to work with such committed colleagues to deepen understanding of South Asia.
Thank you for being a part of that journey. We hope to see you here on campus in the coming year or in our office in New Delhi!
TARUN KHANNA
Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School
The Mittal Institute launches a first-of-its-kind study to explore the digital health needs of over 150 stakeholders, ranging from community health workers to investors in India. Read more on page 20
Ahead of COP28, the Mittal Institute publishes a policy brief, “Climate Change in South Asia: Requisites for a Sustainable Future.” Read more on page 15
A webinar discusses findings from four years of archival research into the history of punishment in India. Read more on page 14
More than 400 students, faculty, and affiliates celebrate the start of the academic year in Cambridge. Read more on page 57
AUGUST
A seminar in New Delhi explores scenarios in Indian politics ahead of key state elections in December 2023 and the national elections of 2024. Read more on page 57
A webinar discusses the emerging contours of India’s newly announced National Research Foundation. Read more on page 57
A new book, “Architectures of Transition: Emergent Practices in South Asia” launches at an architecture conference hosted by the Mittal Institute India office. Read more on page 59
Senator Sherry Rehman, Chair of the Climate and Environment Caucus of the Senate of Pakistan and former Federal Minister of Climate Change in Pakistan, speaks at Harvard. Read more on page 58
A conference in New Delhi unravels translation as a key tool in studying the evolving geographies and ecologies of South Asia. Read more on page 58
Harvard undergraduates travel to Hyderabad, India, to teach at a week-long residential program for underprivileged high-school students. Read more on page 23
A four-part series kicks off to discuss the 2024 elections in India. Read more on page 60
MAY
The Mittal Institute’s spring flagship events include an Honorary Lecture by Prof. Diana Eck and a full-day symposium on Science and Technology in South Asia, and WHO expert Soumya Swaminathan delivers the 2024 Harish C. Mahindra Lecture. Read more on page 61
HUM SAB EK (We Are One), a multi-media exhibition about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in India, launches at Harvard. Read more on pages 28-29
FEBRUARY
A two-part series on economic and political upheavals in Sri Lanka kicks off. Read more on page 60
The Mittal Institute awards 11 faculty grants for research on South Asia. Read more on page 30
An informational video on heat stroke awareness and protection, co-produced by the Mittal Institute Climate Platform, is widely broadcast during the May-June 2024 heatwave in India. Read more on pages 15-16
The Mittal Institute Welcomed Five New Steering
In October 2023, the Mittal Institute welcomed five new members to its Steering Committee: Caroline Buckee, Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Richard Cash, Senior Lecturer on Global Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (Editor's note: Richard Cash sadly passed away on October 22, 2024); Mashail Malik, Assistant Professor, Department of Government; Sanjay Saini, Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School; and Daniel Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Caroline Buckee and Daniel Schrag bring extensive knowledge on climate change and have been serving as core members of the Mittal Institute Climate Platform since May 2023. Richard Cash was renowned for his work on infectious diseases, especially regarding the discovery of Oral Hydration Therapy (ORT). Mashail Malik specializes in the political psychology of identity, with a focus on ethnicity, immigration, and internal migration. Sanjay Saini teaches an undergraduate course at Harvard College on Global Health that gives students an opportunity to gain firsthand experience of healthcare delivery in South Asia during the winter break in collaboration with the Mittal Institute.
The Mittal Institute Steering Committee now has 28 members (see page 65).
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The Mittal Institute supports faculty-led multidisciplinary research projects and programs in the disciplines of arts and humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
The Mittal Institute runs a major climate change initiative focused on South Asia that includes research projects, training programs, and fellowships.
South Asia is home to nearly two billion people and is commonly regarded as “ground zero” for climate change. The region is experiencing severe flooding, heat waves, and droughts, forcing millions to adapt to the changing environments or relocate. Impacts are amplified by socio-economic issues as well as infrastructure that is neither adapted to the frequency and intensity of climate change’s acute impacts nor to the longer-term impacts on coastal populations and agriculture. To drive evidence-based policymaking on these significant challenges, there is an urgent need for contextual, reliable, and accessible empirical data on climate change and adaptation.
In March 2023, the Mittal Institute launched its Climate Platform to bring together researchers at Harvard and in-region from different discipline — including medicine, public health, climate science, and economics — with policymakers and other end-users of such research.
The platform’s inaugural projects are described here:
Ahead of COP28, the Mittal Institute published a policy brief on “Climate Change in South Asia: Requisites for a Sustainable Future,” summarizing findings from convenings with climate experts.
With a grant from the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University, this project aims to advance climate adaptation research and implementation across the household, community, state, and federal levels in South
Asia. In collaboration with local partners, the project identifies key threats to health and livelihoods by consolidating and collecting data on environmental variables, such as rainfall, temperature, flooding, drought, health, and agricultural production. This helps pinpoint the communities most at risk. Additionally, it aims to co-design and test climate strategies on a large scale, which includes technologies, financial instruments, law and policy, and programs for education, training, and awareness.
Mapping the Landscape of Adaptation Action in South Asia
This project aims to map and identify adaptation interventions that address the effects of climate change in South Asia. These interventions, initiated by households, civil society organizations, the private sector, and governments, include technological innovations, financial tools, policy changes, and educational programs. The project examines how these interventions tackle risks and vulnerabilities in four main sectors – habitats, agriculture, energy services, and health – on acute, medium, and long-term timescales.
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
Ahead of COP28, the Mittal Institute published a policy brief, “Climate Change in South Asia: Requisites for a Sustainable Future,” which captured findings from the inaugural climate conference in March 2023 and a workshop on climate adaptation in South Asia and West Africa held in Cambridge in November 2023. The policy brief outlined the need to prioritize at-risk communities, plan for various time horizons in implementation projects, and create climate consciousness through accessible knowledge dissemination.
The Mittal Institute climate team also
collaborated with the National Foundation of India, the Community Science Alliance, and the India Meteorological Department to produce an informational video on heat stroke awareness and protection. An earlier version was screened at COP28, and an updated version was widely broadcast during the May-June 2024 heatwave in India. In June 2024, collaborators of the Climate Platform jointly published an op-ed in The Indian Express on the same topic.
This project explores the effects of extreme heat on economically disadvantaged working women in India, addressing the shortfall of macro-level temperature data that often overlooks
the profound impacts on the most vulnerable, including informal workers in unprotected outdoor environments.
In a pilot initiative, the homes and workplaces of 90 members of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in Ahmedabad, India, have been outfitted with heat and humidity sensors. The collected data are contrasted with weather station readings to highlight environmental and infrastructural deviations affecting these women. Additionally, the participants are equipped with biosensors that track their heart rate, movement, and sleep patterns, providing insights into how extreme heat influences their mobility, mental and physical health, livelihood opportunities, and productivity.
Looking ahead, this project aims to evolve into an extensive longitudinal study encompassing several hundred women from diverse trades, age groups, and housing situations.
Faculty Collaborators:
Caroline Buckee, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Satchit Balsari, Harvard Medical School; Peter
John Huybers, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University; Tarun Khanna, Harvard Business School; Jennifer Leaning, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Rahul Mehrotra, Harvard Graduate School of Design; Daniel P. Schrag, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University.
Research Team:
Robert Meade, Research Fellow, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Natalie Ayers, PhD Candidate, Department of Government, Harvard University; Akash Yadav, Research Affiliate, CrisisReady; Felipe González Casabianca, Research Affiliate, CrisisReady; Kartikeya Bhatotia, Climate Fellow, Mittal Institute.
Data needed for evidence-based interventions on climate change is often
A video series in different Indian languages sensitizes viewers to the dangers of heat strokes and how to prevent them. The video was created in collaboration with local partner organizations and widely
hard to access, incomplete, or scattered across bureaucratic, public, and private institutions. This project significantly improves access by building a searchable repository of curated datasets. The user-friendly interface will combine large language models and generative AI to allow users to identify data needed to answer their research and policy questions.
Faculty Leads:
Satchit Balsari, Harvard Medical School; Caroline Buckee, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Tarun Khanna, Harvard Business School.
The Mittal Institute supports climate change research by Harvard faculty members focused on South Asia. Caleb Dresser, a professor at Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, has been studying the implications of climate change for
emergency care in India; Holly W. Samuelson, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, is working on a project for ‘Ultra-Low-Cost Solutions for Overheating and Sleep Disruption in Indian Homes’; Gary Adamkiewicz, Associate Professor of Environmental Health Disparities at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, is working on a project for ‘Healthy Ambient Lighting Environments for Dhaka City’; and Susan Crawford, John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, is investigating how people in Bangladesh are adapting to floods and sea level rise.
Most of the attention dedicated to research is going towards climate mitigation in the Western world. For those who reside in the developing world, climate adaptation takes a particular form of urgency because literally hundreds of millions of lives and livelihoods depend upon it
—
TARUN KHANNA, JORGE PAULO LEMANN PROFESSOR, HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL; DIRECTOR, THE LAKSHMI MITTAL AND FAMILY SOUTH ASIA INSTITUTE
The Lancet Citizens’ Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System is a cross-sectoral initiative to develop a roadmap to achieving Universal Health Coverage in India.
/ CO-CHAIRS
GAGANDEEP KANG
Gates Foundation
TARUN KHANNA
Harvard Business School / The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute
KIRAN MAZUMDAR-SHAW
Biocon Ltd.
VIKRAM PATEL
Harvard Medical School / Harvard
T.H. Chan School of Public Health
/ Location Across India
/ Duration 2020-2025
The Lancet Citizen’s Commission on Reimagining India’s Health System was founded in December 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, to identify health system reforms needed to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in India within a decade.
The commission framed itself as a citizens’ commission in the sense that its analyses and reform options are rooted in the lived experiences, expectations, and preferences of the Indian people. The commission is guided by the principle that all of India has a right to high-quality healthcare and that the government must finance, steward, and operate the health system.
The commission consists of members from a broad spectrum of expertise and viewpoints and is structured across five workstreams: citizens’ engagement, financing, governance, human resources for health, and technology. It actively engages with diverse audiences through its website, a monthly newsletter, and webinars.
To systematically assess India’s UHC achievements and challenges, and to present recommendations, the commission has conducted several research studies. This includes a representative survey of 50,000 households on their experiences, preferences, and expectations of the healthcare system, a mixed-methods study across six districts in India, and the design of a new index that relies on routinely collected data to assess the achievement of UHC at the district level.
The final report is scheduled to be published in The Lancet in 2025.
Learn more about the Lancet Citizens' Commission here
Universal Health Care in India can only be achieved through consultative and participatory engagement with the diverse sectors involved in healthcare and, most importantly, with India’s citizenry.
— PROF. VIKRAM PATEL, CO-CHAIR OF THE LANCET CITIZENS' COMMISSION
Meeting of authors working on the Lancet Citizens' Commission report, ARTPARK, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, August 2023.
The India Digital Health Network is an interdisciplinary team of experts from medicine, computer science, data science, and law. For the past seven years, they have helped shape the policy landscape and technical framework of India’s digital health ecosystem.
/ Key Personnel
SATCHIT BALSARI
Harvard Medical School / Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
SHUBHANGI BHADADA
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute
DEVADASS DHINAGARAN
St. John’s Research Institute
BHARAT KALIDINDI
St. John’s Research Institute
VERGHESE THOMAS
St. John’s Research Institute
TONY RAJ
St. John’s Research Institute
/ Location
Across India
/ Duration Since 2017
The India Digital Health Network (IDHN) is a research, education, and policy collaborative working towards advancing digital health implementation in India. It addresses barriers to digitizing India’s health system, such as a lack of focus on end users’ needs, difficulties in implementing data privacy frameworks, and unstructured and inefficient information flows.
Key focus areas include evaluating and optimizing India’s national digital health platform for non-communicable chronic disease management, developing training curricula in digital health implementation, and establishing real-world clinical sandboxes to validate promising digital health interventions.
This year, a major milestone was the conclusion of a study on India’s Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) screening and management tool. The IDHN team, in collaboration with researchers from St. John’s Research Institute in Bengaluru, developed an optimized user interface and field tested
it to quantify the improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, and satisfaction.
IDHN is also conducting a first-of-itskind study, which began in July 2023, to explore the digital health needs of over 150 stakeholders ranging from community health workers to investors. The team has curated a problem list and is examining the convergence and divergence of needs.
To learn about local priorities, share ongoing research and innovation in the field, and set priorities for future work, IDHN also convenes periodic national conferences and workshops in India. The next national conference is scheduled for early 2025.
This project aims to ensure that India’s digital health system avoids the monopolistic pitfalls of the US system, is patient-centric, and complies with local and global data protection standards. We contributed to shaping the technical framework that now serves as the foundation for India's digital health system. Now we are working on designing specific examples to show how this framework can improve clinical care.
SATCHIT BALSARI, IDHN PROJECT LEADER
The Mittal Institute funds several faculty-led initiatives that offer free educational programs to economically disadvantaged students attending public schools and universities in India.
The Mittal Institute continues to provide funding and administrative support to three educational initiatives led by Harvard faculty. The aim is to bridge gaps between opportunities offered by public versus private institutions, conduct pilot studies on better learning outcomes, and strengthen cross-cultural teaching experiences for Harvard students.
Scienspur – targeting university students
Launched in 2021 with a Mittal Institute faculty grant, Scienspur is a non-profit organization that provides free, high-quality STEM courses to underprivileged students attending public colleges and universities in India. The program aims to teach fundamental concepts and introduce emerging concepts in science, sparking student interest in STEM and preparing them for future scientific careers.
The program was conceptualized by Nagaraju ‘Nag’ Dhanyasi, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Molec-
ular and Cellular Biology at Harvard, and Vinay Vikas, a biotech professional, under the leadership of Venkatesh Murthy, Raymond Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard. They recruited an ever-growing, all-volunteer team of postdoctoral fellows and industry professionals from leading universities in Europe, India, and the U.S. to teach the online courses.
Starting with just two courses and 60 students in 2021, Scienspur offered five courses in 2024 to 550 students, who were chosen from more than 1,000 applicants based on their economic background and interest in STEM. The Mittal Institute continues to co-fund the project.
Inspired
Each year, PSIL brings together Harvard undergraduates and Osmania University students with underprivileged high school students in India for a weeklong residential program. Assisted by Osmania University students, the Harvard undergraduates deliver a liberal arts and sciences curriculum to the students. The curriculum is based on a holistic approach, spanning multiple fields of study, extracurricular activities, and interactions outside the classroom to facilitate cultural exchange between the three groups.
Program leaders Dominic Mao, assistant director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Andrea Wright, assistant dean of Harvard College, accompany the students. This year, they held pedagogy workshops for high school teachers.
Launched in 2019 with a Mittal Institute faculty grant, the program receives additional funding and logistical support through partnerships with state officials. After a pandemic-related pause in 2021 and 2022, the two recent iterations of the program have taken place in Hyderabad, in the Indian state of Telangana, with the state’s Education Department expressing interest in expanding the program.
Pre-Texts is a methodology developed by Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. It is a “pedagogical acupuncture” that stimulates close reading and critical thinking by treating texts as material to make art. It trains educators to facilitate rigorous learning through student-centered creative projects that require attention and collaboration.
Successfully implemented in Latin America and Africa, the Mittal Institute is funding a pilot study to implement Pre-Texts in 10 low-income primary schools in the New Delhi region, which started in May 2024. Based on the study, Sommer plans to co-author a “Case for Culture” on “Pre-Texts to Flourish in India.”
The Mittal Institute’s Arts Program bridges South Asia’s artistic world with the intellectual and creative resources of Harvard University.
The Mittal Institute is dedicated to the scholarship and preservation of South Asian art and architecture through research and training, fellowships, and numerous arts-related events. Three major initiatives are elaborated below.
The Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellowship is a unique opportunity for mid-career visual artists from around South Asia to spend eight weeks on the Harvard campus, allowing them to refine their craft and engage with the vibrant university community.
In fall 2023, the fellowship spotlighted two dynamic Indian artists: Cop Shiva and Garima Gupta. Cop Shiva’s series, "Street as Studio," captivated audiences with its vivid portrayal of migrants in Bengaluru, juxtaposing their harsh realities with their dreams. Garima Gupta’s "a/muse/um" offered a poignant narrative through drawings and texts, documenting a decade spent in wildlife markets
Cop Shiva, STREET AS STUDIO (both images) 2012-Ongoing Bengaluru, India
across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Her work vividly captures themes of loss, migration, desires, and ecological fragility.
Garima Gupta, UNIPAMORL (top image)
2020 | 9.8" x 8.3"
Graphite on paper
Garima Gupta, HELLO DARLING! (bottom image)
2020 | 13" x 9.3"
Graphite on surgical glove wrapping sheet. Inside a lightbox
Khan, SUREELI SAKHIYAN
2021 | 30" x 48"
Acrylic on canvas | Series ‘The Vermilions’
Spring 2024 saw the arrival of Pakistani artists Amra Khan and Waleed Zafar. Khan’s paintings delve into the complexities of identity and gender. Her series, "The Vermilions," explores Lahore’s underground queer culture with vibrant acrylics, while "Ecce Homo" examines machismo’s performative aspects through religious, mythological, and socio-economic lenses. Waleed Zafar’s work intricately pieces together the historical and cultural tapestries of South Asia, using archival imagery and photography to explore caste systems, colonial ethnography, and migration. His art is a profound investigation into South Asian identity and racial politics. The Visiting Artist Fellowship not only provides the artists a platform to deepen their practice but also fosters a rich cultural exchange, enriching Harvard’s community with diverse perspectives and powerful narratives from South Asia.
2018 | 48" x 48"
Oil on canvas | Series ‘Ecce Homo’
Waleed Zafar
NOW WHERE DO THEY STAND? 1
2023 | 15”x 20”
Digital Print
Waleed Zafar
NOW WHERE DO THEY STAND? 3
2023 | 15”x 20”
Digital Print
The State of Architecture in South Asia is a multi-year research initiative anchored by the Mittal Institute and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD), supported by the South Asia Graduate School of Design Student Group and the Architecture Foundation, India. Led by Prof. Rahul Mehrotra and former GSD students Pranav Thole and Devashree Shah, the project explores fundamental questions about the research and practice of architecture in South Asia, a region undergoing numerous transitions.
The project examines how architecture reflects these changes and addresses issues like public agency, architectural education, and equity, with a focus on architecture in the public realm. It values both intra- and inter-generational dialogues, using a structure that in-
cludes lectures, conferences, podcasts, publications, and a traveling exhibition to ensure a comprehensive exploration of architectural issues within a temporal context.
In December 2023, the project launched the book, Architectures of Transition, Emergent Practices in South Asia, based on extensive research into emerging South Asian architectural practices. This publication was unveiled at the "Architectures of Transition: Frameworks & Practices in South Asia" conference in New Delhi, which brought together over 40 academics and practitioners, and attracted over 400 attendees. The conference fostered dialogue on the agency of architecture, bridging the gap between academia and practice. A traveling exhibition showcasing emergent architectural practices in South Asia was also launched, designed to expand on insights from the lecture series, book, and conference. It began in New Delhi and is set to travel to several cities across India and other South Asian countries.
Mapping Color in HistoryTM (MCH) is a digital research platform that brings together the scientific data drawn from existing and on-going material analyses of pigments, especially in Asian painting, to put them in a historical perspective.
A major component, MCH-India, focuses on collaborative research on historical pigments in India to enhance the understanding of the global history of colors and pigments. By deploying the MCH Mobile Heritage Lab for site-specific research in museums and archives in India, it collects valuable data on historical pigments and promotes research-based conservation practices. Initially established through the Tata-Mittal Institute grant in late 2019, the lab has expanded through additional faculty research grants from the Mittal Institute.
The project addresses misconceptions about historical pigments by compiling object-based pigment analysis data, ensuring precise historical research. It is multidisciplinary, combining scientific analysis with humanistic research through digital humanities tools. MCH-India fosters multilateral, international collaborations, exemplified by the historic partnership with the Asiatic Society, Mumbai, which concluded in spring 2024, setting the framework for further on-site research in India and beyond.
Project Director/Principal Investigator: Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies, Harvard University.
Professor Jinah Kim with her History of Art and Architecture (HAA) colleagues and students of HAA100r sophomore excursion seminar to India view historically important manuscripts in the Asiatic Society, Mumbai (including a dated illustrated paper manuscript of the Aranyakaparvan), which have been analyzed and rehoused in the context of the MCH-India project by Anjali Jain, MCH India Research Manager.
Examination of a pigmented area on an illustrated Aranyakaparvan manuscript folio at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai under the high magnification (~250x) of a digital microscope to visualize the pigment particles.
Lead Curators
SATCHIT BALSARI
Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
HITESHREE DAS MDes ’25
Project Team
ROBERT MCCARTHY, BA ’23
WILLIAM BOLES, MLA ’26
KARTHIK GIRISH, MUP ’25
DEEPAK RAMOLA, EdM ’23
SHARIQ M. SHAH, MDes ’24
ABHISHEK BHATIA, MS ’17
KARTIKEYA BHATOTIA, MPP ’24
SELMON RAFEY Mittal Institute
BETTINA WYLER Mittal Institute
AMRA KHAN
Visiting Artist Fellow
VISHWESH SURVE, MDes Candidate at the National Institute of Design
VISHAL PATHAK, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute
Members of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
In the spring of 2024, the Mittal Institute hosted a multimedia exhibition highlighting the experiences and response strategies of women in India’s informal sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition grew organically from research conducted by Prof. Satchit Balsari in Gujarat, India, and was created by an interdisciplinary team of graduate students from across Harvard.
HUM SAB EK (We Are One) is an immersive exhibition based on Prof. Satchit Balsari and his team’s study of the im-
pact of the COVID-19 pandemic on poor informal workers in India. In 2022, a team of researchers from Harvard, the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, and the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) surveyed over 1,000 households and gathered 30 hours of oral testimonies from members of the 2.9-million-strong SEWA. They found that SEWA’s members successfully negotiated the pandemic – despite significant economic, political, and social constraints – through years of organizing and a commitment to mutual cooperation and solidarity in their communities. The researchers conclude that SEWA’s “economy of nurturance” provides answers for a world struggling to address the rapidly changing climate.
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
In 2023-2024, to make the research findings available, an interdisciplinary team of graduate students from across Harvard designed a traveling exhibition with 12 installations that combine visual graphics, videos, photographs, and art. Hosted from April to August 2024 on the Harvard campus, the exhibition’s next stops will be the Clinton Global Initiative in New York City, the World Bank Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and then Europe and India. Meanwhile, the oral histories are publicly archived at Harvard Countway Library’s History of Medicine Archives.
Read behind-the-scenes interviews and media coverage, and watch panel recordings by scanning the QR code below:
The Mittal Institute supports faculty research with grants to fund a variety of fields, disciplines, and regions related to South Asia.
The Mittal Institute annually supports faculty research projects that unite scholars from different fields and regions whose research relates to South Asia. Priority is given to interdisciplinary scholarship, as well as projects that catalyze connectivity between scholars at Harvard and those in South Asia.
The 2024-2025 faculty grant recipients and their research initiatives are listed below.
Rahul Mehrotra
John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Architecture in South Asia: Towards Building an Archive
Vishal Khandelwal
Assistant Professor of History of Art and Architecture, Department of History of Art + Architecture
Crafted Visions: India and the Values of Design, 1955–1985
Aravinthan D.T. Samuel
Professor of Physics, Department of Physics & Center for Brain Science
Educational Outreach at the Intersections of Art, Physics, and Optics in Sri Lanka
Gautam Nair
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Fostering an Industrial Revolution in Retail and Distribution in India
Gary Adamkiewicz
Associate Professor of Environmental Health Disparities, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Healthy Ambient Lighting Environments for Dhaka City
Adaner Usmani
Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies, Department of Sociology History of Punishment in India
Martha Chen
Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; International Coordinator of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)
Informal & Collective Enterprises in India, With A Special Focus on Women’s Enterprises
Susan Crawford
John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Interviews in Bangladesh about Climate Adaptation
Pawan Sinha
Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Steps Towards Expanding the Scale and Scope of Project Prakash
Andrea Wright
Lecturer of Anthropology and Resident Dean of Eliot House Tired Hands and Pressured Care: Race, Gender, and Labor in Contemporary India
Holly Samuelson
Associate Professor of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Ultra-Low-Cost Solutions for Overheating and Sleep Disruption in Indian Homes
Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University
"The History of Punishment in India" project, led by Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, originally began with an aim to understand the America-centrism on mass incarceration. The Indian-specific research, led by Rohit Sharma, a former lawyer, offers a perspective on violence in developing countries, focusing on India's penal system and its evolution.
With a faculty grant from the Mittal Institute, the team collected over 180,000 subnational data points, covering various aspects of the Indian criminal justice system, including prison mortality, recidivism, and detailed demographic information, making it one of the most
As one of the 2023 Mittal Institute faculty grant winners, Adaner Usmani explored the punishment trends from colonial times to the present in India, seeking to influence public discourse and policy. This work is part of a broader effort to gather the history of punishment worldwide.
comprehensive collections in the field. Additionally, the team has also documented over 3,000 data points on national data, which gives a holistic view of the evolution of Indian punishment.
The research findings were presented during an online session in November 2023, hosted by the Mittal Institute. The session provided an overview of the Indian penal state in a comparative context, highlighting the project’s findings on caste-based and religious inequalities.
Yet, the project's impact extends beyond academic research. Active networks around the India Prison Portal are being built to engage civil societies, scholars,
and government officials. The project has laid the groundwork for a deeper understanding of India's penal system and its unique challenges, and it is poised to contribute to meaningful reforms in India's criminal justice system.
The Mittal Institute supports Harvard undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students in their South Asia-related research and internships, entrepreneurial projects, and oncampus student group activities.
The Mittal Institute provides student grants to support undergraduate and graduate students working on issues relating to South Asia.
The Mittal Institute funds Harvard students in their pursuit of research, language studies, or internships focused on South Asia during the winter and summer recesses. These grants are usually between $2,000 and $3,000.
Winter 2023-2024 Grants
Furqan Ashraf
Harvard Kennedy School, 2025 Atomcamp Internship: Data-Driven Governance in Pakistan (Pakistan)
Deepika Gopalakrishnan
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2024 Alba: Period Detection Wipe for the Visually Impaired (India)
Zehra Imam
Harvard Divinity School, 2025 The Contours of Taqiyya in Pakistan (Pakistan)
Priyanka Kar
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2024 Spatialization of Conflict in Ayodhya: Mapping Urban Shifts in post-Babri Masjid Era (India)
Nosher Ali Khan
Harvard College, 2024
Impact Assessment Internship at the Aga Khan Foundation (Pakistan)
Aisha Kokan
Harvard College, 2026
Body Image & Eating Disorders: Enduring Legacies of Historical Trauma on Women in Tamil Nadu (India)
Imaan Mirza
Harvard College, 2025 Internship with AGHS Legal Aid Cell in Lahore (Pakistan)
Kalpana Mohanty
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2025
Body Politic: The Making of the AbleBodied Indian Citizen (India)
Ahmad Mustafa
Harvard Kennedy School, 2025
Risk Management Internship with the Government of Punjab (Pakistan)
Kailash Pandey
Harvard Kennedy School, 2025
Supporting Rural Entrepreneurs in Nepal with Climate Adaptation (Nepal)
Shariq Shah
Harvard Graduate School of Design, 2024 Researching Light and Pathways for Disaster Mobility and Refugee Identity in Coxs Bazaar Rohingya Camp (Bangladesh)
Hilton Simmet
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2024
From Justice to Just Science: Inequality in France, India, and the U.S. (India)
Kartik Srivastava
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2026
Long-run Effects of a School System
Targeted Towards Historically Disadvantaged Communities (India)
Jordan Borgman
Harvard Divinity School, 2026 Mapping Nepali Beyuls with ArcGIS (Nepal)
Prince Dhawan
Harvard Kennedy School, 2025
Improving the Efficiency of State and Central Government Public Finance Systems: Internship with the Ministry of Finance (India)
Nigel Gray
Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2029
Finding Purpose: Gender & Sociocultural Influences on Sri Lankan Adolescent Educational Aspirations (Sri Lanka)
Roohullah Gulzari
Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2028
Teacher Collaboration Programs in Low-Income Contexts: Field Work in Pakistan (Pakistan)
Jungju Seo
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2025
Jayanta on the Nature of Inference (United States)
Priyanka Sethy
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2028
The Nostalgia of Status and Diaspora Support for Authoritarianism: Indians in the U.S. and UK (United States)
Davindar Singh
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2024 Mewati Language Study (India)
Sadiq Soofi
Harvard College, 2025 Persian Language Study in Lahore (Pakistan)
Poorna Swami
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2028
The Worlds They Wrote: Women’s Discourses in Late-20th-Century Urdu Print Culture (India)
Shreya Tandon
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 2026
Facilitating Job Search and Career Mobility for Rural-Urban Migrants in India (India)
Saravanan Thangarajan
Harvard Medical School, 2025
Environmental Hazards’ Impact on Mothers with Disabled Infants in South India (India)
Imaan Mirza, a rising college senior concentrating in History and Literature, was a recipient of a Mittal Institute Winter 202324 Student Grant. She completed a threeweek internship at AGHS Legal Aid Cell, a non-profit that provides free legal support to low-income Pakistanis from vulnerable communities in Lahore, Pakistan.
Mittal Institute: What was your role at AGHS Legal Aid Cell?
IM: During my three-week internship, I completed legal research, legal drafting, and administrative tasks. For example, I compiled a series of reports on both media-reported and police-reported instances of violence against women. This project felt meaningful, as very few materials like this exist online. I also had the opportunity to practice legal drafting – a rare opportunity for an undergraduate! Under the supervision of one of the firm’s lawyers, I completed a suit for the maintenance of a mother and her minor child. In my last week of work, I even had the opportunity to visit the Lahore High Court and observe the fascinating courtroom dynamics. Lastly, I attended a prosecutors' training, led by
the firm, designed to discuss newly developed items of anti-rape legislation.
What did you learn from your internship?
IM: The internship offered me rich insights into Pakistan’s legal system, with a special focus on family laws. This perfectly complements the Comparative Family Law class in which I was enrolled this year and about which I hope to write my senior thesis. It was thrilling to see the behind-the-scenes work of a group like AGHS, whose work I both greatly admire and hope to pursue one day, following my graduation from Harvard in 2025. So, the internship was incredibly stimulating and only whetted my appetite for a career in law!
What else was memorable about your trip?
IM: Touring Old Lahore and observing the strange yet lovely syncretism of colonial and Mughal architectural styles was definitely a personal highlight for me. Growing up in Lahore, I never really had the opportunity to “play the tourist” in the city. Now, at the age of 22, I was very keen to explore Lahore and study its fascinating history. The city felt equally as new and exciting as it did familiar.
The Mittal Institute offers grants to student organizations for academic and social events relating to individual countries or spanning the region of South Asia.
There is a growing number of undergraduate and graduate student organizations from various schools focused on South Asia. The Mittal Institute offers them grants to host cultural and educational events on issues affecting South Asia, as well as social events such as concerts and mixers. The average grant support for academic events is $500, while the average grant support for non-academic events is $250.
Student Organization Grant Recipients 2023-2024:
• Harvard India Conference
• Harvard South Asian Music Association
• Harvard Undergraduate Bhangra
• India Caucus at Harvard Kennedy School
• Sikhs and Companions of Harvard
• Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Club, Harvard Graduate School of Education
• South Asia Graduate School of Design
• South Asian Women's Collective
• Women in Power Conference
(L to r) Co-chairs of the student-led Harvard India Conference, Ishaan Poddar and Shruti Agrawal, pose with Tarun Khanna, Mittal Institute Faculty Director, at the conference in February 2024. Prof. Khanna advised the students, and the Mittal Institute co-sponsored the two-day event.
Padma Shri Malini Awasthi (pink dress, microphone) performs at “Raga Revelry: A Journey Through India Classical Music,” organized by the
Kennedy School India Caucus and co-sponsored by the Mittal Institute, September 2023.
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
speaks at the event “Co-creation with Communities: Lessons from Bangladesh” in September 2023, which was organized by the South Asia Graduate School of Design student organization and co-sponsored by the Mittal Institute.
Seed for Change is an annual competition to develop entrepreneurial student projects that aim to positively impact social, economic, and environmental issues in India.
The Seed for Change competition is made possible by a generous grant from KP Balaraj MBA ’97 and Sumir Chadha MBA ’97.
Once a year, the Seed for Change (SFC) competition provides monetary prizes to interdisciplinary, entrepreneurial student projects that have the potential to positively impact social, economic, and environmental issues in India.
The grand prize for a 12-month project is up to $30,000, and up to two runner-up prizes of up to $5,000 may be awarded for exploratory travel grants. The program prioritizes projects in the early stages of development over start-ups that have already received financial support.
“Solara”
Rea Savla (CEO), MBA ’24, Harvard Business School
Vishesh Mehta (COO), MBA ’26, Harvard Business School
“Solara” aims to eliminate farmers’ dependence on costly, fossil-fuel-based irrigation methods. It will pilot an ondemand solar irrigation service for Indian farmers in Odisha, increasing their access to affordable, reliable, and clean irrigation. For this, “Solara” is deploying a network of solar irrigation kits that are shareable. Through a digital platform, farmers will be able to book time and pay for that time only, which
can be thought of as an “Uber for Irrigation” in rural India. This relieves marginal farmers of the burden of owning costly solar irrigation equipment and instead offers them irrigation services only when and where they need it at half the price of traditional diesel-powered irrigation systems.
“North Star Program”
Alria Kharage, Master of Education ’24, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Vyankatesh Kharage, Master of Education ’24, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Asude Foundations’ North Star Program is a comprehensive intervention designed to support students in Grades 9 and 10 by providing career education and building essential life skills. Students get the opportunity to explore their interests, develop essential skills, and receive the necessary support to make informed decisions about their future after Grade 10. With the grant, the program will expand from Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad) to a new district in the state of Maharashtra by partnering with local grassroots NGOs.
The Mittal Institute connects faculty and students from across Harvard and other U.S. academic institutions with scholars, public and private organizations, and governments in South Asia.
The Mittal Institute offers fellowships and associate opportunities to students, scholars, and practitioners to contribute to independent research on South Asia in a variety of disciplines.
The Mittal Institute provides ever-expanding opportunities for scholarly and artistic exchange between Harvard and South Asia. This includes fellowships, visiting scholar programs, and associate programs.
Every year, scholars focused on South Asia or from South Asia are welcomed to the Harvard campus to engage in research with some of the leading academics in their particular fields of interest. The Mittal Institute also offers opportunities for in-region scholars to connect with Harvard’s exceptional resources and faculty while remaining in South Asia.
The Bajaj Visiting Research Fellowship (Cambridge) is a semester-long appointment that supports advanced scholars who have a research interest in India, with priority given to those who have primarily been educated in South Asia.
The Mittal Institute India Fellowship (MIIF) (New Delhi) is an academic yearlong appointment based at the institute’s India office. It funds highly qualified postdoctoral researchers focused on India or connected with India to collaborate remotely with Harvard faculty.
The Pakistan In-Region Research Fellowship (Pakistan) supports outstanding junior faculty from reputable universities across Pakistan. Fellows are mentored remotely by a Harvard faculty member in their area of scholarship.
The Raghunathan Family Fellowship (Cambridge) is an academic year-long residency that supports recent Ph.D. recipients in the humanities and social sciences with their research on historical or contemporary South Asia.
The Syed Babar Ali Fellowship (Cambridge) is a semester-long appointment that supports advanced degree holders and recent Ph.D. recipients in their continued research in areas related to Pakistan.
The Visiting Artist Fellowship (Cambridge) is a unique opportunity for mid-career visual artists from around South Asia to spend eight weeks on the Harvard campus. The fellowship is research-centered, providing artists with the vast resources of Harvard’s intellectual community to enhance their artistic practice while being mentored by a faculty member.
The Mittal Institute supports a small number of fully funded visiting scholars each year. These scholars are funded via a fellowship program (Fulbright, Marie Curie, etc.) on leave from an academic university ladder position, or they are privately funded. They have a Harvard faculty member as a mentor and participate actively in the Mittal Institute community while at Harvard.
The Mittal Institute Associates program accepts a limited number of researchers
and faculty with an interest in South Asia. Associates contribute to Harvard’s scholarship on South Asia through their wealth of expertise on the region, from political economy to public health. Appointments are unpaid and associates are not housed in the Mittal Institute’s offices.
The Mittal Institute supports graduate students from across Harvard who conduct research focused on South Asia. Graduate Student Associates (GSAs) benefit from the interdisciplinary ex-
change of ideas, network opportunities, and other resources.
ANU K. ANTONY
Raghunathan Family Fellow
Social Anthropologist, India
GARIMA GUPTA
Visiting Artist Fellow
Visual Artist, India
ATUL BHALLA
Distinguished Climate Artist in Residence 2023
Visual Artist, India
VIJAY CHANDRU
Distinguished Visiting Fellow for Climate and Science 2024
Academic and Entrepreneur, India
PRADEEP CHOUDHURY
Bajaj Visiting Research Fellow
Economist, India
AMRA KHAN
Visiting Artist Fellow
Visual Artist, Pakistan
MUHAMMAD IMRAN
MEHSUD
Syed Babar Ali Fellow
Interdisciplinary Researcher, Pakistan
ROBERT RAHMAN RAMAN
Mittal Institute India Fellow
Historian, India
RINAN SHAH
Mittal Institute India Fellow
Interdisciplinary Researcher, India
SARAH UMER
Visiting Scholar (Fulbright)
Arts Historian, Pakistan
COP SHIVA
Visiting Artist Fellow
Photographer, India
WALEED ZAFAR
Visiting Artist Fellow
Visual Artist, Pakistan
IAN TALBOT
Visiting Scholar
Historian, United Kingdom
AJMAL KHAN AREETHALA
Assistant Professor
Shiv Nadar University, New Delhi, India
KALAIYARASAN ARUMUGAM
Assistant Professor
Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, India
YAQOOB BANGASH
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Information Technology University, Lahore, Pakistan
NAVEEN BARATHI
Assistant Professor
Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India
ABHISHEK BHATIA
Ph.D. Candidate, Carolina Health
Informatics Program
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States
ABDUL CHANNA
Assistant Professor
University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan
MARTHA CHEN
Lecturer in Public Policy
Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, United States
SANJEEV CHOPRA
Director, Valley of Words Dehradun, India
PRADEEP CHOUDHURY
Assistant Professor of Economics
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
LIAQUAT CHANNA
Professor of English
Balochistan University of IT, Engineering, and Management, Quetta, Pakistan
MARIAM CHUGTAI
Assistant Professor
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
RONAK DESAI
Partner, Paul Hastings LLP
Washington D.C., United States
HARDEEP DHILLON
Assistant Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania, United States
DEVADASS DHINAGARAN
Assistant Professor
St John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru, India
KHEYA FURTADO
Assistant Professor
Goa University of Management, Goa, India
GARIMA GUPTA
Independent Artist India
RAHUL GUPTA
CEO
J.C. Flowers Asset Reconstruction, India
AMREEN WASIF HUSSAIN
Research Fellow
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
NAVEEN JHA
Global Director
Mehta Family Foundation
Katy, United States
BHARAT KALINDINDI
Senior Research Associate
St John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru, India
NADRA KHAN
Associate Professor of Art History
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
BHARGAV KRISHNA
Fellow and Coordinator
Sustainable Futures Collaborative, New Delhi, India
TODD LEWIS
Distinguished Professor of Arts and Humanities
College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, United States
CHANDRA MALLAMPALLI
Research Scholar
Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, United States
AKSHAY MANGLA
Associate Professor of International Business University of Oxford, Oxford, England
FARZANA MISHA
Assistant Professor
BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
SAMEEN NASAR
Researcher
BRAC University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
DINYAR PATEL
Associate Professor
S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai, India
ADITYA PILLAI
Fellow and Coordinator
Sustainable Futures Collaborative, New Delhi, India
ANKUR PHUKAN
Independent Historian India
PUIA ROLUAHPUIA
Assistant Professor
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India
ANNIE ROYSON
Assistant Professor of Literature
Pandit Deendayal Energy University, Gandhinagar, India
TANIA SAEED
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Lahore University of Management Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan
SRISHTEE SETHI Research Fellow
Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, India
SALIL SHETTY
Vice President Global Programs Open Society Foundation, New York, United States
VIDYA SUBRAMANIAN
Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Planning and Strategy
Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India
IAN TALBOT
Emeritus Professor of Modern South Asia University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
VERGHESE THOMAS Researcher
St John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru, India
KHYATI TRIPATHI
Visiting Fellow / Postdoctoral Researcher
University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom / Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, Belgium
VERONICA VARGAS Co-Founder
Global Health, Biodiversity, and Therapeutics Innovation Consortium, Cambridge, United States
ASHUTOSH VARSHNEY
Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences
Brown University, Providence, United States
ABIJEET WAGHMARE Researcher
St. John’s Research Institute, Bengaluru, India
LAURA WEINSTEIN
Ananda Coomaraswamy Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, United States
AKASH YADAV
Research Affiliate
CrisisReady, Cambridge, United States
SURAJ YENGDE
Hutchins Fellow
Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, Cambridge, United States
FATIMA ZAHRA
Assistant Professor of Evaluation, Statistics, and Methodology
University of Tennessee, Knoxville, United States
MUHAMMAD ZAMAN
HHMI Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Boston University, Boston, United States
MARIAM ZIA
Assistant Professor
Lahore School of Economics, Lahore, Pakistan
SARTHAK AGARWAL
Ph.D. Candidate, Population Health Sciences
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
PALAK GUPTA
Master of Architecture Candidate
Harvard Graduate School of Design
GAURI JAIN
Ph.D. Candidate, Computer Science
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
HANSONG LI
Ph.D. Candidate, Government
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
VAISHNAVI PATIL
Ph.D. Candidate, History of Art and Architecture
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
PARIROO RATTAN
Ph.D. Candidate, Public Policy
Harvard Kennedy School
RONAK JAIN
Ph.D. Candidate, Economics
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
TYLER RICHARD
Ph.D. Candidate, South Asian Studies and Comparative Literature
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
PRIYA SARMA
Master of Global Health and Population Candidate
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
PRIYANKA SETHY
Ph.D. Candidate, Government
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
HILTON SIMMET
Ph.D. Candidate, Public Policy
Harvard Kennedy School
KARTIK SRIVASTAVA
Ph.D. Candidate, Public Policy
Harvard Kennedy School
AKHIL THOMAS
Ph.D. Candidate, Committee on the Study of Religion
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
SHAHARYAR ZIA
Ph.D. Candidate, Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Anu K. Antony, the Mittal Institute’s 20232024 Raghunathan Fellow, is a social anthropologist who focuses on subjectivity, women’s religious life, affective forms of labor, everyday religiosity, and postsecular discourses in the context of Indian Christianity. During her fellowship at the Mittal Institute, she worked on converting her Ph.D. dissertation into a monograph.
Mittal Institute: What is your research in the field of Christianity and Catholicism about?
AKA: My research explores the everyday lives of nuns belonging to the indigenous Syrian Catholic congregations of Kerala, India, where I am from. These congregations and their institutions occupy a central space in the educational sphere of Kerala, especially regarding healthcare and young women’s education. But regardless of their existence and presence as professional women—hospital administrators, teachers, nurses, doctors, school principals, care workers, social workers, lawyers—their labor is rarely located in the discourses on Kerala’s history or modernity. In-
stead, the nuns are invariably portrayed as silenced and exploited figures forced to spend their lives in enclosures. The absence of the figure of a laboring nun in the mainstream discourses helps us further discuss the nature of Kerala’s secular public sphere. It is also extremely difficult to find mainstream literature that discusses a religious woman’s life and work in the context of South India, which limits us in exploring the historical and contemporary social realities of the region.
Using a methodology that combines archival and ethnographic data, I try to understand various aspects of a nun’s vocation through the narratives of her calling, prayer, work, negotiation,
submission, dissent, migration, and so on. The attempt is to bring out the complex relationship between a female religious ‘subject’ and institutional disciplinary regimes, and to understand the centrality of her call and subjectivity in her reflective self-constitution as a ‘free’ religious subject. This also opens up the crucial differentiation between the concepts of ‘agency’ and ‘freedom’ and how a nun’s subjectivity fashions an ethic of work, which I refer to as ‘spiritual labor.’
Mittal Institute: What have you worked on during your fellowship with us?
AKA: During the year-long fellowship, I have worked on a manuscript to develop my Ph.D. thesis into a monograph. I am very grateful that I am under the expert mentorship of Francis X. Clooney, S.J.,
a professor at Harvard Divinity School who has done significant work on South Asian religions. My engagement with him has been incredibly beneficial for my research.
The fellowship also allowed me to utilize connections and networks of Harvard alumni and affiliates. This facilitated my travels to Peru and Italy to explore the transnational migration of Syrian Catholic nuns from Kerala to South America and Europe for mission work. While the migration of Malayali nuns to Europe started in the 1950s and follows the colonial missionary routes back from South Asia, the migration to South America is a very recent phenomenon that began within the last 10 years. I’m studying it as part of my larger research on the subjectivity and labor of Catholic
nuns to better understand the nuances of Catholic networks and how the global mission is seen as a central aspect of an individual nun’s subjectivity as a sojourner in ‘this’ world.
Mittal Institute: What are your career goals after the fellowship?
AKA: I would love to continue focusing on the transnational migration of Malayali nuns for religious labor and the flow of this labor across the globe through the networks of the Catholic church. I am also interested in looking at the Christian-Muslim everyday engagements in the context of South India. For this, I am currently applying for academic positions both in and outside India.
Each academic year, the Mittal Institute hosts a multitude of events covering topics in the arts, humanities, sciences, education, business, and more.
The Mittal Institute strengthens South Asia-related research in a variety of disciplines by providing platforms for scholars to present and discuss their research at symposia, conferences, workshops, and seminars.
4 exhibitions
5 conferences 55+ talks and seminars 200+ speakers
In partnership with relevant organizations, student groups, and academic institutions, the institute’s events provide platforms for faculty, scholars, industry leaders, and others to present their research, discuss developing issues, and deepen the public’s understanding of the critical issues facing South Asia today.
During the academic year of 2023-2024, these events brought together renowned speakers such as Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s former Minister for Climate Change and current Senator; author Gurcharan Das; Bharat Vatwani, recipient of Ramon Magsaysay Award 2018; and Soumya Swaminathan, former Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization (WHO).
A wide array of departments and programs from across Harvard co-sponsored and collaborated on the events, including the Center for International Development; Committee on the Study of Religion; David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; Department of Art, Film, and Visual Studies; Department of South Asian Studies; Harvard
Graduate School of Design; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Harvard University Press; Mahindra Humanities Center; Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics; Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability; Weatherhead Center for International Affairs; and the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School.
The Mittal Institute also collaborated with other universities, including the MIT Center for International Studies and the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University.
Within South Asia, the Mittal Institute collaborated with a wide range of organizations such as the Harvard Business School Club of India, Harvard Alumni Association, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health – India Resource Center, Architecture Foundation, JSW Foundation, Central Institute of Indian Languages, and Boston University Foundation- India.
Read a curated list of event highlights of the Mittal Institute’s Cambridge and India offices below. The events took place in Cambridge, New Delhi, or online. For a full list of the 60+ events and 200+ speakers, check out our website.
AUG. 3, 2023
Lancet Citizens’ Commission Meeting at ARTPARK, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
A full-day, closed-door, in-person meeting was organized by the Lancet Citizens’ Commission, bringing together the commissioners, authors of the project report, and other special invitees. The participants discussed the analysis and results of the research studies and data collected by the commission over the last three years and debated the evidence-based conclusions and recommendations that the commission will be putting forth. It also provided a platform to discuss the continuing work of the commission once the report is published.
AUG. 4, 2023
The Emerging Political Scenarios in India
This seminar delved into scenarios in Indian politics ahead of key state elections in December 2023 and the national elections of 2024. Moderated by Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, four panelists discussed the potential for substantial opposition unity, the role of dominant narratives in sustaining political power, and the uncertainties in democratic elections.
AUG. 18, 2023
Emerging Contours of National Research Foundation for India
Moderated by Mittal Institute Faculty Director Prof. Tarun Khanna, experts discussed the emerging contours of India's newly announced National Research Foundation. The foundation is envisioned to strengthen the research ecosystem in the country by providing high-level strategic direction for scien-
tific research and supporting collaborations among the industry, academia, government departments, and research institutions.
SEPT. 9, 2023
Welcome Back Mixer
More than 400 attendees celebrated the start of the school year, connected with student organizations and members of the Mittal Institute and Harvard community, and learned about Mittal Institute events and grants.
SEPT. 21, 2023
Ela Ramesh Bhatt: A Gentle Revolutionary – A Harvard Celebration of Her Legacy
This event celebrated Ela Ramesh Bhatt, the founder of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India, who passed away in November 2022. Ela was recognized for her Gandhian values, visionary ideals, pioneering work, and quiet-centered humanity. She received a host of honors, including an Honorary Doctorate degree from Harvard University, a Radcliffe Medal, and the civilian honor of Padma Shri by the Government of India.
SEPT. 27, 2023
Student Event: Launch of the Mittal Institute Climate Platform
Students learned about the Mittal Institute’s newly launched research platform focused on climate change and adaptation in South Asia and avenues for engagement. Climate Platform Co-Lead Prof. Satchit Balsari and Mittal Institute Faculty Director Prof. Tarun Khanna chaired the event.
OCT. 5, 2023
The Climate Crisis with Senator Sherry Rehman, Former Federal Minister of Climate Change, Pakistan
Senator Sherry Rehman, Chair of the Climate and Environment Caucus of
the Senate of Pakistan and former Federal Minister of Climate Change, was in conversation with James H. Stock, Vice Provost for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University and Director of the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.
OCT. 5-6, 2023
Conference on South Asia in Translation: Geography, Memory, and Textuality
With 13 speakers, the conference unraveled the intertwined narratives of land, conquest, memory, and translation as found in the textual traditions of the subcontinent. The event also contributed to an understanding of translation as a key tool in studying the evolving geographies and ecologies of South Asia. The conference was chaired by Vidyan Ravinthiran, Associate Professor of English at Harvard University, while Annie Royson, Mittal Institute India Fellow, served as the convener.
OCT. 10, 2023
Visiting Artist Fellowship Fall 2023 Art Exhibition
The Mittal Institute’s Fall 2023 Visiting Artist Fellows were Garima Gupta, a visual artist from New Delhi, India, and Cop Shiva, a photographer from Bengaluru, India. They introduced and exhibited their artworks in conversation with Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University.
OCT. 16, 2023
Talk by Mittal Institute’s Visiting Climate Artist Atul Bhalla: Have You Ever Seen the River?
Atul Bhalla is a visionary conceptual artist who examines the complex relationship between urban waterscapes and their inhabitants. In this talk, Bhalla unfolded his sustained preoccupation with the waterways of New Delhi. He was in conversation with Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University.
NOV. 13-15, 2023
Workshop: Adapting to Climate Change in South Asia and West Africa
This workshop, with a public keynote event, “Recalibrating Sustainability: Living with a Changing Climate,” built on research being conducted by the faculty research clusters on climate adaptation in West Africa and South Asia that are funded by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. The workshop discussed the shared threats that climate change poses in the two geographies.
NOV. 20, 2023
History of Punishment in India
This webinar discussed findings from four years of archival research into the history of punishment in India, spanning the colonial and post-colonial periods. This research is part of a broader effort to gather data on the history of punishment around the world. The project in India is funded by the Mittal Institute and led by Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at Harvard University, who also served as the moderator of the session.
DEC. 14-16,
Architectures of Transition: Frameworks and Practices in South Asia Conference
This conference created a forum for experts in the field of architecture to reflect on the breadth of work undertaken in the South Asia region. It put theoreticians, academics, and practitioners in dialogue with each other, bridging the schism that exists between the academy and practice. The conference also included the launch of the book “Architectures of Transition: Emergent Practices in South Asia.” The book was curated and edited by State of Architecture in South Asia project leaders Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urban-
ization at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; Devashree Shah, GSD ‘23; and Pranav Thole GSD '23. The book catalogs 41 emergent architectural practices in South Asia that display a rigorous engagement in the making of architecture, landscape, and infrastructure in the public realm.
JAN. 9 & 12, 2024
Illness to Wellness to Well-being: Views from the C-Suite
The event discussed how well-being is promoted in companies and the challenges and opportunities of taking an integrated approach to well-being. Dr. K. Viswanath, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, shared findings from his study with C-Suite leaders, followed by fireside chats with two leading Indian industry leaders.
FEB. 29 & APRIL 29, 2024
Crisis in Sri Lanka: A Two-Part Series
This series, chaired by Eric Beerbohm, Professor of Government and Faculty Director of the Safra Center, looked at various forms of resistance to governance and decision-making amid unprecedented economic and political upheavals in Sri Lanka. It also looked at the country’s human rights record and ongoing movements for justice with a special focus on gender.
MARCH 4, 2024
Visiting Artist Fellowship Spring 2024 Art Exhibition
The Mittal Institute’s Spring 2024 Visiting Artist Fellows were Amra Khan, an interdisciplinary visual artist, and Waleed Zafar, a visual artist and curator, both from Lahore, Pakistan. On March 4, they introduced and exhibited their artworks in conversation with Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies at Harvard University.
MARCH 6+25 & APRIL 8+16, 2024
India Votes 2024: A Four-Part Series
Ahead of India’s general elections, this series – led by Harvard Professors Arunabh Ghosh, Maya Jasanoff, and Vatsal Naresh – featured experts from across the social sciences and media to provoke discussions about democracy, the press, and diasporic politics that resonate with parallel trends in the U.S., Asia, and globally. The 15 panelists addressed questions such as how India’s standing as the “world’s largest democracy” should be assessed; how India’s neighbors perceive recent developments in India; how one reports and presents the results of elections for Indian and international audiences; and how South Asians in America react to Indian politics.
MARCH 29-APRIL 30, 2024
Crossing Many Seas: Virtual Exhibition Featuring Alumni of Visiting Artist Fellowship
This virtual exhibition presented the works of two alumni of the Mittal Institute’s Visiting Artist Fellowship (VAF) program, Sudipta Das and Ishita Chakraborty. Curated by New Delhi-based curator and scenographer Reha Sodhi, the exhibit symbolized the profound journeys undertaken by individuals across physical and metaphorical seas, navigating the complexities of migration, identity, and belonging.
APRIL 12-13, 2024
Global India Frontiers Conference at Princeton University
In collaboration with Princeton University’s M.S. Chadha Center for Global India and Indiaspora, the Mittal Institute co-hosted this first pan-USA academic conference that brought together academics across multiple disciplines to discuss key themes relating to Global India – economy, sustainability, arts, innovation, inclusion, and partnerships. The goal was to feature breakthrough advances, share diverse viewpoints, and stimulate collaborations.
APRIL 15, 2024
Launch of the HUM SAB EK (We Are One) Multimedia Exhibition
The HUM SAB EK (We Are One) exhibition is based on Prof. Satchit Balsari’s research on the experiences and response strategies of women in India’s informal sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition opened with a panel with the curatorial team as well as representatives of the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) on the research and themes covered in the exhibit.
MAY 2, 2024
Teaching India in a Changing World –Honorary Lecture by Prof. Diana L. Eck
Diana L. Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard Divinity School and Fredric Wertham Professor of Law and Psychiatry in Society in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, gave a riveting talk to a crowd of more than 150 colleagues, students, faculty, alumni, and Mittal Institute affiliates about her long career of teaching and working in India – and the changes and challenges in India over these decades.
Jack Hawley, Claire Tow Professor of Religion at Barnard College, who has known Prof. Eck for many years, opened the lecture. After the talk, Eck was in conversation with Martha Selby, Sangam Professor of South Asian Studies and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, to discuss the ways teaching and speaking about religion and politics have also changed over time.
MAY 3, 2024
Annual Cambridge Symposium: Science and Technology – The Future of South Asia
The Mittal Institute’s Annual Cambridge Symposium featured 18 panelists, including experts from across Harvard and the world, who presented their work and discussed ideas on this year’s theme of “Science and Technology – The Future of South Asia.” The day-long event covered topics such as AI, genetics, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal Indian workers, climate change, and mental health. The symposium also included a special intermission to honor Richard Cash, Senior Lecturer on Global Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, for his contributions to global
health, especially regarding the discovery of Oral Hydration Therapy (ORT).
The day culminated with this year’s Harish C. Mahindra Lecture by Soumya Swaminathan. She delivered a keynote address on “Lessons from the Pandemic for Science and Global Health,” in which she discussed the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of her work as Chief Scientist at the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2019-2022. She also elaborated on the importance of future pandemic preparedness, including the need for accelerated vaccine development, and underscored the significance of investing in healthy environments in addition to healthcare.
JUNE 12, 2024
Another Sort of Freedom: Book Talk with Gurcharan Das Gurcharan Das, a celebrated author and public intellectual in India, reflected on his memoir “Another Sort of Freedom.” His memoir is about one man’s struggle to give purpose and meaning to life, or, in Das’s words, to “make a life, not just a living.” He was in conversation with Hitesh Hathi, Executive Director of the Mittal Institute.
Watch event recordings on YouTube
Aditya and Megha Mittal (UK)
Lakshmi and Usha Mittal (UK)
KP Balaraj, MBA ’97 (India), Chair, Advisory Council
Sumir Chadha, MBA ’97 (USA), Chair, Advisory Council
Dipti Mathur (USA), Chair, Arts Council
Tarun Khanna (USA), Faculty Director, The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute
Chairs:
KP Balaraj, MBA ’97 (India)
Sumir Chadha, MBA ’97 (USA)
Aditya and Megha Mittal (UK)
Lakshmi and Usha Mittal (UK)
Syed Babar Ali, AMP ’73 (Pakistan)
Kushagra Nayan Bajaj (India)
Lucinda Bhavsar MBA ’97 (USA)
Kuntala Das and Bharat Das ’08, s/o late Purandar Das (USA)
Mark Fuller ’75, MBA ’78, JD ’79, and Jo Froman (USA)
Meera Gandhi (USA)
Vikram Gandhi, MBA ’89, ExEd ’00 (USA/India)
Mala Haarmann ’91, MBA ’96 (UK)
Rajiv Kothari OPM '14 (USA)
Anuradha and Anand Mahindra ’77, MBA ’81 (India)
Dipti Mathur (USA)
Karen ’82, and Sanjeev Mehra ’82, MBA ’86 (USA)
Victor Menezes (USA)
Chandrika and Dalip Pathak (UK)
Chandni and Mukesh Prasad ’93 (USA)
Sribala Subramanian and Arvind Raghunathan (USA)
Rajiv and Anupa Sahney (India)
Gaurav ’96 and Falguni Shah (USA)
Vimal MBA ’02 and Punyashree Shah (USA)
Parul and Gaurav Swarup, MBA ’80 (India)
Tom Varkey MBA ’97 (USA)
**Jasvinder Khaira and Monica Vaughan-Khaira (USA)
Osman Khalid Waheed ’93 (Pakistan)
Arshad Zakaria ’85, MBA ’87 (USA)
**New in FY 2023/24
Faculty Director: Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies, Harvard University (USA);
Chair: Dipti Mathur (USA)
Arts Program Advisors: Shanay Jhaveri (USA),
Meena Sonea Hewett (USA)
Archan Basu ’93 and Madeline Jie Wang ’97 (USA)
Poonam Bhagat (India)
Anurag Bhargava (India/USA)
Radhika Chopra MPP ’96 (India)
Sunil Hirani (USA)
**Bharti Malkani (USA)
Chandrika Pathak (UK/India)
Pinky and Sanjay Reddy (India)
Omar Saeed (Pakistan)
Sana Rezwan Sait (USA)
Nadia and Rajeeb Samdani (Bangladesh)
Shilpa Sanger (USA)
Gaurav and Falguni Shah (USA)
Osman Khalid Waheed ’93 (Pakistan)
FRIENDS OF THE INSTITUTE
Nadeem Elahi MBA ’01 (Pakistan)
Namita Luthra and Anil Shrivastava AB '90, MBA '96 (USA)
Usha and Diaz Neesamoney (USA)
Anwarul Quadir Foundation (USA)
INDIA ADVISORY BOARD
Aditya and Megha Mittal (UK)
Lakshmi and Usha Mittal (UK)
Gobind Akoi GMP ’10 (India)
KP Balaraj MBA ’97 (India)
Sumir Chadha MBA ’97 (USA)
Radhika Chopra MPP ’96 and Rajan Anandan (India)
Chair: Tarun Khanna, Faculty Director; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School
Homi Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Jacqueline Bhabha, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health; Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Lecturer in Law, Harvard Law School; Adjunct Lecturer, Harvard Kennedy School
Martha Chen, Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Sheila Jasanoff, Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School
Asim Khwaja, Sumitomo-FASID Professor of International Finance and Development, Harvard Kennedy School
Jinah Kim, George P. Bickford Professor of Indian and South Asian Art and Professor of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
Jennifer Leaning, Senior Research Fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; Professor of the Practice at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health
Rahul Mehrotra, John T. Dunlop Professor in Housing and Urbanization, Harvard Graduate School of Design
Venkatesh Murthy, Raymond Leo Erikson Life Sciences Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University
Vikram Patel, The Pershing Square Professor of Global Health, Harvard Medical School
Parimal G. Patil, Professor of Religion and Indian Philosophy, Committee on the Study of Religion; Chair of the Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University
FACULTY STEERING COMMITTEE
* includes members of Cabinet
Ali Asani, Murray A. Albertson Professor of Middle Eastern Studies; Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures, Harvard University
Satchit Balsari, Assistant Professor, Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
**Caroline Buckee, Professor of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health
**Richard Cash, Senior Lecturer on Global Health, Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health
Diana Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences; Member of the Faculty of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School
**Mashail Malik, Assistant Professor, Department of Government
Durba Mitra, Carol K. Pforzheimer Assistant Professor, Radcliffe Institute; Assistant Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University
Jukka-Pekka Onnela, Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
**Sanjay Saini, Professor of Radiology, Harvard Medical School
**Daniel Schrag, Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Ajay Singh, Senior Associate Dean for Postgraduate Medical Education, Harvard Medical School; Director, Master in Medical Sciences in Clinical Investigation (MMSCI) Program
Pawan Sinha, Professor of Vision and Computational Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Doris Sommer, Ira Jewell Williams, Jr., Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and in African and African American Studies, Harvard University
Kristen A. Stilt, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science, Brown University; Director, Center for Contemporary South Asia, Brown University
Conor Walsh, Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences, John A. Paulson Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Muhammad H. Zaman, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health, Boston University
**New in FY 2023/24
Tarun Khanna, Faculty Director; Jorge Paulo Lemann Professor, Harvard Business School
Hitesh M. Hathi, Executive Director
Mirela Vaso, Director of Finance and Administration
Carlin Carr, Assistant Director of Programs and Outreach
Monika Setia, Associate Country Director, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
Shubhangi Bhadada, Research Fellow; Project and Research Director, Lancet Citizens’ Commission
*Kartikeya Bhatotia, Climate Fellow
Ahva Davis-Shiva, Financial Associate
Thomas Elliott, Programs and Administrative Coordinator
Neha B. Joseph, Research Fellow
Kellie Nault, Writer/Editor
Selmon Rafey, Program Manager
Sneha Shrestha, Arts Program Manager
Danielle Wallner, Administrative Assistant
**Bettina Wyler, Communications Manager
India
Amit Chaudhary, Administrative & HR Coordinator, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
**Angarika Datta, Communications and Outreach Manager, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
**Mohini Ganguly, Climate Coordinator, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
**Garima Gupta, Program Manager, Scienspur
Pooja Gupta, Communications Director, Lancet Citizens’ Commission
**Anjali Jain, Research Manager, Mapping Color in History
**Shreya Majumdar, Program Manager, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
Sushma Mehta, Grant and Finance Manager, Harvard Global Research Support Centre India
Pakistan
Mariam Chughtai, Pakistan Programs Director
Nepal
Pukar Malla, Nepal Programs Direct
**New in FY 2023/24
*New in FY 2024/25
The Mittal Institute collaborates with various institutions and organizations in the United States and in-region. Some are listed below.
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, India
Amardeep Design, India
Architecture Foundation, India
BRAC University, Bangladesh
Christian Medical College, India
CEPT University, India
Community Science Alliance, India
CrisisReady, Cambridge, USA
Dell EMC, United States
Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Graduate School of Design (GSD),
Harvard University
India Meteorological Department
JSW Group, India
National Foundation of India
National Translation Mission, India
Office of the Provost, Harvard University
Prakriti Foundation, India
Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University
Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India
South Asia Graduate School of Design
Student Group, Harvard University
St. John’s Research Institute, India
Sustainable Futures Collaborative, India
TATA Trusts, India
TrustBridge Rule of Law Foundation, India
The Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University
CGIS South, 4th Floor, 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
B- 43, Middle Circle, Connaught Place, New Delhi - 110001, India
Lahore University of Management Sciences, DHA, Lahore Cantt. 54792, Lahore, Pakistan
https://mittalsouthasiainstitute.harvard.edu/