SAI is pleased to announce our Fellows for the upcoming academic year. SAI’s fellowships are opportunities for scholars and practitioners to utilize Harvard University’s resources to contribute to self-driven independent research. While on campus, fellows will actively participate in the events and intellectual life of the Institute.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi
Babar Ali Fellow, Spring 2017
Faculty mentor: Ali Asani, Professor of Indo-Muslim and Islamic Religion and Cultures
Farooqi is a writer, translator, and publisher. Farooqi’s novel Between Clay and Dust was a finalist for the 2012 Man Asian Prize for Literature. His internationally acclaimed translation of the Dastan-e Amir Hamza (The Adventures of Amir Hamza) was called a “gift to world literature” by TIME magazine. He writes the monthly MICROTALK column on the folktales and myths of South Asia for Hindustan Times LiveMint/Lounge magazine. Farooqi has extensive experience of print and digital publishing, and developing reference tools for the Urdu language. He was the Urdu Publisher at Oxford University Press Pakistan from 2009-2010 where he designed and launched the Urdu publication program and supervised the electronic edition of the Oxford English-Urdu dictionary. In July 2016 Farooqi launched world’s first online Urdu Thesaurus and mobile app (www.urduthesaurus.com) which he has edited, from his publishing house KITAB. As an innovative solution for educating children about health hazards, Farooqi has also developed an integrated story and board game in collaboration with Michelle Farooqi, and is working on educational game apps.
Fahad Javed
Aman Fellow, Fall 2016
Faculty mentor: Venky Narayanamurti, Benjamin Peirce Research Professor of Technology and Public Policy
Javed is an assistant professor in the Computer Science department at GIFT University, Gujranwala, Pakistan. His research is focused around smart grids, specifically on anything to do with demand side management. He believes that demand side management is the need of the hour for the world in general and developing world in particular. Before joining GIFT he completed his Ph.D. from the department of computer science, school of science and engineering Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His thesis centered on constructing a demand side management framework for energy management in a city or region. His passion, aside from research, is teaching. He believes that teachers have the ability to mold the character of their pupils.
Shubhankita Ojha
South Asian Studies Fellow, 2016-17
Faculty mentor: Sven Beckert, Laird Bell Professor of History
Ojha is SAI’s South Asian Studies Fellow for year, as well as a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She received her Ph.D from the Department of History, University of Delhi in 2016. Her research interests include labour, maritime history and urban history. She particularly works on Bombay dock labour and is interested in a comparative study of dock workers globally.