trajectories

I found my feet in the field of education, traversing widely different contexts and following a rather unlikely trajectory.

After lived in Abu Dhabi, UAE for seventeen years and having attended an Indian school, St. Joseph's School, the expatriate lifestyle created within myself a deep feeling of alienation and a yearning to understand my roots. Subsequently, I nested myself at the University of Delhi for the rest of my higher education. I obtained my BA (Hons) English from St. Stephen's College (2003-2006) and graduated with a MA in Sociology from the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics (2006 to 2008). I was fortunate to complete my PhD from the Central Institute of Education (2018), under the supervision of the renowned educationist and the former Director of the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT), Prof. Krishna Kumar. My doctoral dissertation explored the history of India's oldest talent search examination for school students, The National Talent Search Examination.

My professional entry into the field of education began when I worked with the ICICI Center for Elementary Education, ICICI Foundation, Pune, India (2008-2010). Being part of an institution that worked with both the State as well as NGOs within this domain was a fascinating introduction to the granular processes through which policies and programmes in the field take shape, spurring my interest in understanding the life cycles of education interventions and innovations. In 2017, I undertook a mapping study for the Center for Equity and Inclusion (CEQUIN) supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in order to understand the state of adolescent girls' education among Meo Muslim girls in the district of Mewat in Haryana and the kind of educational interventions that may be useful in their context. From 2020 to 2021, I developed a special research based reading program for pre-school students (aged 4 to 6 years) in Innopolis, Russia, which used classic English children's literature as a means of introducing the language for Russian students.

These varied trajectories have shaped my identity as a teacher. Before joining the School of Liberal Arts (SoLA) at IIT Jodhpur, I have also taught at the Departments of Sociology in two distinguished colleges for women at the University of Delhi, i.e. the Lady Shri Ram College for Women (2017-2018) and the Indraprastha College for Women (2018-2019).