Summer is the perfect time to slow down with a good book, and our Graduate Student Associates have some great recommendations to inspire your next read. From climate displacement, to questions of identity, to stories set in 1980s Sri Lanka, their picks span a wide range of themes and perspectives. There’s something here for every reader. Happy reading!
This academic year, the Mittal Institute has supported 20 graduate and PhD students from across the different schools at Harvard who conduct research focused on South Asia. These Graduate Student Associates (GSAs) engage in monthly working groups to receive feedback from one another and exchange ideas.
Palak Gupta, Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is an architect from India, and a graduate student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Since her undergraduate studies at Academy of Architecture, Mumbai University, she has been involved in pedagogical and research conversations involving the communities vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and urbanization. We spoke with Palak to learn more about her research.
Summer is on the horizon and that means it’s a great time to catch up on a book (or two or three!). We spoke with some of the Mittal Institute’s Graduate Student Associates to see what’s on their reading list and to hear more about their favorite reads.
Nusrat Jahan Mim, a Mittal Institute Graduate Student Associate, is a Doctor of Design candidate at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on post-colonial, post-secular urban designs and human-computer interaction. By examining existing systems, she explores how different spatial and technical designs challenge or propagate social exclusions in the Global South. She is a Harvard Mellon Urban Initiative Fellow for the academic year 2022-23. Prior to Harvard, she won the prestigious AIA Henry Adams Medal from Syracuse School of Architecture for achieving the highest academic rank in M.Arch. The Mittal Institute also profiled her work on makeshift cattle markets in Dhaka in a September 2021 newsletter. We spoke with Nusrat to get an update on her work and new GSA role.
Vaishnavi Patil, one of the Mittal Institute’s new Graduate Student Associates, is a doctoral candidate in Harvard’s History of Art and Architecture department working on South and Southeast Asia. Vaishnavi received her B.A. in Ancient Indian History and Culture from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and an MA in History of Art and Archaeology from SOAS, London. She was a Yenching scholar at Peking University, China, receiving an MA in China Studies. In addition to her studies, Vaishnavi has participated in numerous internships, including curatorial training at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Harvard Art Museums.
Vaishnavi is interested in studying female deities, especially mother goddesses, and how production, patronage, and development of religions play a role in the evolution of the mother goddess in South Asia. She is also interested in the text-to-image relationships in South Asian art, particularly the literal and the symbolic in the illustration of a text. Other areas of interest include popular practices, marginalized deities, depiction of evil, and gender issues. Her current research aims to analyze the origins and development of the cult of the mother goddess in South and Southeast Asia, particularly her representations and the popular practices centered on her.
The Mittal Institute presents its Academic Year 2022-23 Fellows and Graduate Student Associates.
Tianjia (Tina) Liu joined the Mittal Institute as a Graduate Student Associate in the 2021-2022 academic year and is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University. Tina’s research focuses on using satellite data and atmospheric modeling to quantify the impacts of fires on air quality and public health in India, Indonesia, and globally. She has recently published 2 papers with another in review on the topic of crop residue burning and the impact on air quality degradation. Prior to joining the Mittal Institute, Tina received her B.A. in Environmental Science from Columbia University, and her research has primarily been focused on fires and air quality since her undergraduate days.