Dr Mala Ramanathan (she/her) is a Professor at the Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies (AMCHSS), SCTIMST, Thiruvananthapuram. She has completed her Master’s in Statistics (MSc) from the University of Madras, Chennai and has another Masters in Medical Anthropology (MA) from the University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam. She is a trained demographer with an MPhil and PhD in Population Studies from the International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai. She has also completed her Fellowship in Research Ethics from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, Boston as part of an NIH initiative. She has been faculty at the AMCHSS for 26 years where she has been teaching Gender issues in Health, Qualitative Research Methods, Anthropological Perspectives in Health and Ethics in Health Research. She is also currently one of the Working Editors of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, a leading Bioethics journal that is published quarterly in India by the Forum for Medical Ethics Society, Mumbai. She is also visiting faculty for Research and Public Health Ethics across several transnational NIH-supported training programmes in Bioethics. Dr Mala has more than 50 publications in national and international journals in her area of interest and brings to the training, her rich experience of research, teaching and mentoring students in health research.

Dr Ajay Bailey is a Professor of Transnational Mobilities at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He leads the research line Global Migration, Culture and Place working at the interface of anthropology, geography, demography and public health. He holds the prestigious Dr T.M.A. Pai Endowed Chair in Qualitative Methods at Manipal Academy of Higher Education, India, named after Dr Tonse Madhav Ananth, the founder of the university. With his Chair, he coordinates the Transdisciplinary Center for Qualitative Methods – a joint initiative with Manipal Academy of Higher Education. To develop this research line he has been awarded more than €1.5 million in grant funding by a number of organizations such as NWO/Dutch Organization for Scientific Research, Ubbo Emmius Foundation, Gratama Foundation, amongst others. As an anthropologist and a cultural demographer, he has produced more than 30 top peer-reviewed international publications; one highly cited monograph; and has supervised nine PhD researchers. He is passionate about qualitative research, teaching, and capacity building of young researchers. His work significantly contributes to expanding the field of transnational mobilities, ageing, inter-generational relations, health systems research, health services, reducing barriers to care, while establishing meaningful North–South and South–South collaborations.

Dr. H. Arokkiaraj holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Delhi. Prior to joining RGNIYD, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Leibniz Science Campus, Germany. He also worked as a research affiliate at the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. During different periods he worked at the Centre for Development Studies, Kerala. Further, he also worked as a research intern at the India Centre for Migration (ICM) at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India. At present, he is jointly coordinating India’s country case inventory on mobility and COVID-19 for the Mobility, Livelihood, and Wellbeing Lab (MoLab) at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany. He has also widely published on international labour migration from India to Gulf countries. His research interests include international labour migration, student mobility, and human trafficking, particularly in Gulf countries and intra-Asia.

Dr Nikhil P N holds a master’s degree in Social Work from the Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit, Kalady, Kerala and Population Studies from the International Institute for Populations Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, India. For this doctoral pursuit, he has received Ubbo Emmius scholarship from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands and Prof. VKRV Rao fellowship from Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) Bangalore, India. Based on this book, he holds a PhD in demography from the The University of Groningen, The Netherlands. In the last few years, he is involved in teaching and training students/researchers in qualitative research methods. He coordinated various qualitative research programs such as Certificate Course in Qualitative research methods, summer school/winter school/ workshop on Advanced qualitative methods for Transdisciplinary Centre for Qualitative Methods (TCQM), Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India.

Dr. Dipti Govil is an Assistant Professor in the International Institute for Population Sciences. Before joined IIPS, she was Assistant Professor, in Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), Jaipur. Her areas of interests are Health Policy, Reproductive Health, Middle Age, Population Aging, Abortion, Child Health, Nutrition, Breastfeeding, Community Health, Health System, Quality of Care.

Dr. Niyathi R. Krishna is a Sir Ratan Tata Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellow , International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics. She is a feminist scholar and development practitioner working as Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Development Studies at Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD) Regional Centre, Chandigarh, under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Govt. of India. She has Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee and Master’s Degrees in Development Studies and Women Studies. For a short while, she has worked as Research Assistant in the Dept. of Gender Studies, IUCSSRE, MG University, Kerala and Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee. Dr. Niyathi has over a decade of expertise in qualitative research. She has received the first Triennial ‘Preet Rustagi Research Fund Award’ by Indian Association for Women’s Studies (IAWS) for young researchers below 35 years of age, to facilitate independent field-based research on women and work (2020) and RGNIYD Grant for a project on women and labour at the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021). She has extensively published articles in journals, books and compendium issues. She is also the recipient of National Balshree Award from the President of India for excellence in Creative Writing.

Dr. Selim Jahangir is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Transdisciplinary Centre for Qualitative Methods and Health Demography, Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal. His key research and education interests are in Population aging and care, Health Inequalities in the Global South, and Qualitative research methods. He is the course coordinator of the ‘Certificate course in Qualitative Research Methods’ in Manipal. 

Shahana Purveen is a doctoral researcher at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Her Ph.D thesis focuses on inter-state migration, specifically looking at the livelihood and identity issues of migrant taxi drivers in Mumbai. She has a Master’s degree in Human Rights from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh. She has done M.Phil from TISS, and her M.Phil dissertation focuses on “Child labour in the Lock Industry of Aligarh.” She has been awarded the Erasmus Mundus PhD Exchange Scholarship to visit the University of Oxford. During her stay in Oxford, she conducted small research on Indian migrants working in restaurants. During the crucial time of the global pandemic of COVID-19, she volunteered on two projects: Let’s Reach Out Kerala and CoAST India (Tamil Nadu Team), to provide consultation to stranded migrants in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. She has presented her research at various national and international conferences. Additionally, she published her research work in select edited books and journals. Shahana’s primary areas of interest revolve around ethnicity, migration, and labour dynamics.

Dr. Ambuja Kowlgi has a PhD in Anthropology with a Specialization in Medical Anthropology. As an anthropologist, she has been involved in research and analysis and assisted many qualitative studies as an anthropologist and qualitative research consultant, specializing in health, gender and education. She has worked with national and international research teams and organizations, including Sambodhi Research Communications, The Hunger Project, Jeeva- a research initiative,  over the past decade.