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People & Research

From new research collaborations to award-winning exhibitions, Brandeis has seen a rapid growth in programs, people, and curricular initiatives focused on India. Here are a few illustrations of those relationships.

Faculty Working in India or on Indian and South Asian Studies

Ulka Anjaria
Assistant Professor, Dept. of English

Research interests: South Asian literatures and film; postcolonial literature and theory; narrative theory; the global novel; interdisciplinary approaches; literary theory.

Jonathan Shapiro Anjaria
Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Research interests: Urban Studies, Political Anthropology, Political Ecology, citizenship and democracy; South Asia.

Preeta M. Banerjee
Assistant Professor of Strategy, International Business School

Research interests: Strategy, Technology And Innovation Management, Entrepreneurship.

Sarita Bhalotra
Associate Professor, Heller School for Social Policy & Management, Womens' and Gender Studies

Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, her research projects have included working with large multi-specialty groups, hospitals, and managed care organizations on the financing and delivery of health care, service delivery and financing issues of end-stage renal disease, evaluation of programs for cardiovascular disease management, racial/ethnic disparities in health, and the organizational and provider factors influencing the adoption of new technology. Currently, her focus is on evaluating the organizational and systemic factors affecting the implementation of lifestyle modification programs, using multi-method case study, interview, and survey methodology, as well as analyzing the organizational and physician factors that affect the dissemination of new addictions treatments in substance abuse.

Bulbul Chakraborty
Enid and Nate Ancell Professor of Physics

Recent research has focused on a) analyzing the origin of glassy dynamics in supercooled liquids with a specific focus on the question of an underlying critical point, (b) exploring the origin of force chains in granular media and their effect on the jamming of granular flows, (c) the nature of the jamming transition and (d) constructing a statistical framework for dissipative systems. Prof. Chakraborty's research collaborations include those with scientists in India, France, and The Netherlands.

Professor of History

Research interests: History of American foreign policy. American Intellectual and cultural history. International history and American history in transnational contexts. Currently working on a study exploring the global dimensions of the Cold War by integrating the perspective of the Third World, specifically India.

Elinor Gadon
Visiting Resident Scholar, Women's Studies Research Center

Elinor Gadon is a cultural historian whose research interests and publications are focused on the analysis of myth and image in their cultural context as they affect issues of gender. Her academic training, teaching and publication are both interdisciplinary – in art history, history of religions and cultural anthropology – as well as multi-cultural. Her specialty is the art and culture of the Indian subcontinent.

Rajashree Ghosh
Visiting Resident Scholar, Women's Studies Research Center

Current project: India provides the cultural and historical context of my project as I focus on gender inequities that plague its urban landscape. The project engages strategic partners nationally and globally to inform policy and action. It envisages reviving the “local” dimension of community based social development that recognizes the contributions of women working towards the shared goal of inclusive urban development.

Sarah Lamb
Professor of Anthropology

Research interests: Social-cultural theory. Gender studies. Anthropology of aging. Medical anthropology. Person and self. Immigrant and transnational communities. South Asia. South Asian Americans. Author of Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad (2009).

Brenda McSweeney
Lecturer, Heller School for Social Policy & Management; Visiting Resident Scholar, Women's Studies Research Center

Brenda Gael McSweeney served with the United Nations for thirty years in leadership positions. In Burkina Faso she oversaw UN Development Programme (UNDP) activities and carried out action research on women and development. Currently, Brenda manages Women’s History Initiatives in Boston, Burkina Faso and India. She is analyzing the impact of technology on workloads and female education in Burkina, and livelihoods programs in India.

Nidhiya Menon
Associate Professor of Economics

With knowledge in the areas of non-random program placement, risk analysis, and unconventional financing schemes, Nidhiya Menon has extensive experience in applying the tools of empirical microeconomics and econometrics to the areas of economic development, labor, and economic demography. She has been a researcher at the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, and a consultant with the Development Economics Research Group and the Economics and Development Institute of the World Bank.

Harleen Singh
Helaine and Alvin Allen Assistant Professor of Literature and Women's and Gender Studies
Faculty Director, Brandeis-India Initiative

Research interests: Colonial and Postcolonial Theory and Literature. 19th and 20th century British and South Asian Literature. Immigrant Writing - British, Caribbean, United States. Gender and Women's Studies. Film Studies. South Asian Studies.