Susanna G. Mitra’s research concerns the social, political, and institutional dynamics of
policymaking in India. Her work is largely informed by concept and theories from political
science, sociology, and public policy. She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University
of Manchester, UK and has conducted research on health and social protection of migrant
and displaced communities, and water security in India. She has studied the role of
evidence, identity, regulation, and design in relation to policy development and has
published articles on global governance and public policy processes in India. Her current
work focusses on evidence-based policies in the field of migration and health.
AKM Ahsan Ullah is Associate Professor of Geography, Environment and Development at the University of Brunei Darussalam (UBD). He has an extensive research portfolio and has worked with prestigious institutions such as the City University of Hong Kong, IPH at the University of Ottawa, McMaster University, Saint Mary’s University, Dalhousie University in Canada, the American University in Cairo (AUC), Osnabruck University, Germany, and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand. Dr. Ullah’s research focuses on important global issues such as population migration, human rights, development, globalization, and the environment. He has published 15 books, 60 articles in leading academic journals, and 40 book chapters.
Divya Balan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at FLAME University, Pune, Maharashtra. She teaches courses on Migration, Diaspora, and Refugee Studies at FLAME. She is UGC-NET qualified in International and Area Studies and has twelve years of teaching experience. Dr. Divya taught as Assistant Professor (ad hoc) at the Department of Political Science at Delhi University (Shri Ram College of Commerce and Kamala Nehru College) and the Department of International Relations at the Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod.
Divya holds a doctorate in European Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Her doctoral research investigated the immigrant integration measures of the British Government during the post-multiculturalist phase of 2000-2010, taking the Indian diaspora as a case study. She has visited the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Derby, the UK, on a short-term Europe Area Studies Programme Grant to complete her doctoral thesis.
Divya served as an international visiting fellow of the Institute for European Global Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 2018. She has also been a migration policy consultant for government, civil society and international organisations. She is a recipient of several scholarships and grants and a member of several academic organisations. Divya has published monographs and research papers in edited books and reputed journals and authored several timely opinion pieces in English and Malayalam for international, national and regional newspapers and magazines, including the Routed Magazine, The Wire, Scroll.in, The New Indian Express, Times of India, Telangana Today, The Aidem, Truecopy Think, etc.
An active public speaker, Divya has presented her works in several public fora, national and international conferences, workshops, and symposiums held at various places, including the University of Basel, Switzerland; WageIndicator Foundation, The Netherlands; Erasmus University, Rotterdam; Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh; Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi; Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar; Central University of Kashmir, Srinagar; Manipur University, Imphal; Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana; Manipal University; Kerala University; Mahatma Gandhi University; Kannur University, Kerala; etc. Her research interests span international migration, immigration & integration policies of the European countries, the global Indian diaspora, the India-Gulf migration corridor, Non-resident Keralites, migration and refugee governance in India, and internal migration in India.
Mohit is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Harvard University, specialising in issues of labor, migration and climate change across the Indian Ocean, particularly between South Asia and the Gulf states of the Arabian peninsula. Before beginning his PhD, Mohit studied and worked at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), in the United Arab Emirates.
Professor Shoba Arun is Professor of International Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the University of Greenwich, London, United Kingdom where is she is Lead for the Research Centre for Communities and Social Justice. Her research interests relate to global social identities and inequalities with a keen interest in migration studies and actively publishing in many academic journals, book and blogs. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and member of the British Sociological Association and the Global Studies Association, UK. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Work, Employment and Society Journal. Her latest book, Development and Gender Capital in India: Change, Continuity and Conflict in Kerala (Routledge, 2017) adopts a feminist Bourdieusian approach to the gendered economy and society of the Indian state of Kerala in the global south. She has just completed her role as UK Lead and PI for the Horizon 2020 Project on MICREATE- Migrant Children and Communities in a Transforming Europe, see www.micreate.eu). Previously, she was Professor of International Sociology at the Department of Sociology at the Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom where she was Interim Director of the Research Centre for Applied Social Sciences, and co-convened the Migration and Interdiscplinary Global Studies Research Cluster at Manchester Metropolitan University.
Sarada Gopalakrishnan graduated with a PhD in Agricultural Economics-Economics in 2021 from the University of Madras, Chennai. During her PhD., she studied the broad patterns of rural out-migration with particular focus on farmers and agricultural labourers in Tamil Nadu. She completed her Bachelors in Agriculture and Masters in Agricultural Economics from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore. During her studies, she won several meritorious scholarship awards including Pondicherry Government Fellowship, Research grant from Malcolm Elizabeth Adiseshaiah Trust , Prof. Uthandaraman Aiyasamy Proficiency Prizes in Economics, V.C. Rangasamy Memorial Prize and AIBEA Merit Scholarship.
She has worked in various projects sponsored by the Government of the Union Territory of Pondicherry, Department of Biotechnology, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), New Delhi and recently completed a Government of Tamil Nadu project on Distress Migration in Tamil Nadu.
She has worked as Guest Lecturer at Pondicherry University, Assistant Professor at Institute of Technology and Management, Chennai and presently heads the Department of Economics in a private college at Trivandrum. During her stint at these institutions, she has handled various courses both at the Bachelors’ and at the Masters’ level; Microeconomics, Agricultural Economics, Environmental Economics, Foreign Policy to name a few.
She has published in various peer-reviewed journals and presented papers at several prestigious conferences held at various places including Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry University, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata etc.
Dr.Ginu Zacharia Oommen is a former Member of the Kerala Public Service Commission (2017-2023). Prior to this he was a Visiting Professor at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Paris (2016). He has held various fellowships and has been a Visiting Faculty/Visiting Professor at many illustrious universities and think-tanks of repute across the world. Dr. Oommen has had the distinction of being a Hermes Post-Doctoral Fellow(2009) at MIGRINTER (the Centre for International Migration), University of Poitiers- France and an Associate Fellow at the Maison des Sciences de l’homme (MSH), Paris(2009), and was also a Junior Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library- New Delhi (2013).
Dr Oommen had at the beginning of his career served as a Fellow at the think tanks of Ministry of External Affairs -Indian Council for World Affairs – New Delhi (2008), and India Centre for Migration- New Delhi and had also been a Senior Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient (2014) , the reputed research centre based in Berlin, as well as being a Visiting Faculty at the Gulf Studies Programme- JNU(2011), New Delhi and Sichuan University- China(2010). A Graduate Fellow of the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2000), Dr. Oommen had also been a Junior Research Fellow at the Harry S Truman Institute for the Development of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2004).
Dr. Oommen completed Masters in Political Science from Madras Christian College (MCC) and PhD from the Centre of West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi on the Jews of Cochin in Israel (2006).
Dr. Oommen’s research areas are migration and international development, with a special focus on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and South Asia. His areas of specialization include South Asia- Gulf Migration, India-West Asian Relations, Israeli Foreign Policy, Indian Jewish History, Global Migration and Refugee Studies, Social Remittances and Identity, Transnational Religious Organisations. He has conducted extensive field research in Israel, Palestine, France, Kuwait, and Kerala. He has published extensively in academic journals and leading newspapers in India.
Oommen’s major publications include: Ethnicity, Marginality and Identity: The Jews of Cochin in Israel (Manak, 2011), South Asian Migration to Gulf Countries: History, Policies, Development (Routledge, London 2015), Asianization of Migrant Workers in the Gulf Countries (Springer, London 2019). His forthcoming anthology is “The Social Dynamics of Migration: Emerging Identities and Culture in Kerala”.
Edward Anderson is Assistant Professor in History at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. He works on the history and politics of migration and diaspora – with a focus on India and Britain – in the 20th and 21st centuries. Edward’s work has focused in particular on questions around transnational networks, political movements, diasporic identity, and multiculturalism. Before joining Northumbria University in 2020, Edward was the Smuts Research Fellow in Commonwealth Studies at the University of Cambridge (2015-19). He has also held a postdoctoral position at LMU in Munich, and a number of visiting fellowships including, most recently, at the London School of Economics (LSE) South Asia Centre. He is also an Affiliated Scholar of the Centre of South Asian Studies at the University of Cambridge.
Ashish Lall has a doctorate in Economics from Carleton University in Ottawa. He spent twenty-five years in an academic career in Singapore at Nanyang Business School, Nanyang Technological University and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Earlier in his career he worked at Canada Post Corporation, The Royal Commission on National Passenger Transportation, and at Abt Associates of Canada.
Ashish has published on a variety of issues and areas including child labour, education, productivity and efficiency measurement, national and regional competitiveness, competition policy, intellectual property law, technology policy and payment systems.
Kuldeepsingh Rajput works at Department of Sociology, Savitribai Phule Pune University as a Visiting Faculty since last four years. Before that, he worked as Assistant Professor at teacher education institute in Pune for six years. Along with this he has worked as a faculty for the course on youth development run by Centre for Lifelong Learning, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai in collaboration with Centre for Youth Development and Activities (CYDA), Pune and for the certificate course designed by TISS and Nehru Yuva Kendra (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, GoI). He is associated with CYDA as a consultant for several activities for youth (especially marginalised and migrants). He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology in which he has attempted to examine the poly-victimisation and hidden vulnerabilities among the young migrant construction workers. His articles are published in peer-reviewed journals. His research interest lies in internal (interstate) labour migration, policy dynamics, and education of children of seasonal migrants, politicisation of migrants, social security, urban migrant youth, urban informality and migration, inclusive cities, qualitative-driven mixed methodology.