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Dr.Ginu Zacharia Oommen is currently the Chairperson of Kerala State Food Commission, Govt of Kerala. He 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”.