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New fellows from left: Amra Fatima Khan, Muhammad Imran Mehsud, Sarah Umer, Waleed Zafar.

The Mittal Institute’s Fellows are scholars and practitioners from South Asia who come to Harvard to utilize the University’s resources to contribute to self-driven, independent research. This spring we welcome four new Fellows, in addition to three returning Fellows who began their research with us this past fall:

New Fellows – Cambridge

Amra Fatima Khan is a Visiting Artist Fellow. She is an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Lahore, Pakistan. She is skilled in oils, acrylics, and miniature painting, and often expresses herself through hair sculptures and video installations. Her practice explores the bipolarity of the binary, the dichotomies of gender, sexuality, intimacy, social conditioning, and the impact of religion. More specifically, she investigates the queer and alpha male archetype in the Pakistani Muslim community.

Muhammad Imran Mehsud is the Syed Babar Ali Fellow. He is an interdisciplinary researcher specializing in South Asian transboundary hydropolitics. He is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Hazara University Mansehra, Pakistan. His research at The Mittal Institute investigates the effectiveness of the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 in settling contemporary transboundary water issues between India and Pakistan, given the significant demographic, climatic, and political changes these two nuclear rivals have undergone. 

Sarah Umer is a Fulbright Fellow. She is an associate professor in the College of Art and Design, University of the Punjab Lahore, the oldest university of Pakistan. Her research includes the study of art, ancient civilizations, and religions, predominantly in the South Asian region. As a Fulbright Fellow, she intends to probe the influence of Harappan religious inheritance not only in the early strata of Hinduism but also in the religious thought prevalent in the Greater Arab world considering a hypothesis that the Harappans might be the parent stock of Mesopotamians.

Waleed Zafar is a Visiting Artist Fellow. He is a visual artist and curator currently based in Lahore, Pakistan. His artistic practice is based on photographic and archival research. Waleed Zafar is currently part of the permanent faculty at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore.

Continuing Fellow – Cambridge

Anu Antony is the Raghunathan Family Fellow. She is a researcher whose work focuses primarily on the themes of subjectivity, women’s religious life and labour, everyday religiosity, and post-secular discourses in the context of Indian Christianity.

Continuing Fellows – New Delhi

Robert Rahman Raman is an India Fellow based out of the LMSAI New Delhi office. His research interests lie in the field of Labour History, Urban Studies and Popular Politics in colonial India. More specifically is focus is on the popular politics of Bombay (now Mumbai) and its erstwhile mill district (Girangaon).

Rinan Shah, an India Fellow based out of the LMSAI New Delhi office, explores environmental issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. Her broad areas of interest are environment, development and sustainability studies spanning water, mountains, governance, policy, institutions, and urban issues.