I am a PhD student of sociology and demography focused on documenting inequalities in areas of education, family and development; and geographically in South and Southeast Asia. My work aims to highlight hidden symmetries through which social structures, particularly class and caste, maintain, perpetuate and legitimize inequalities in contemporary world. I aim to do so by studying process within different types of institutions. Previously, I have documented such processes within the classroom, and in studying inter and intra-generational relationships within families. 

My ongoing work is divided across two strands. Within the first, I am studying the emerging middle class of the developing world in context of socio-economic uncertainty. Active projects within this strand include reviewing literature on middle class, theorizing global middle class, and ongoing qualitative panel interviews with children (aged 12), and their parents in New Delhi. The second strand is focused at what House (2019) calls "policy sociology", and is aimed at responding to contemporary policy questions in the developing contexts. Prior work include mapping policies and processes to identify bottlenecks in governance operations, and public service delivery. Ongoing work in this strand include assessing learning trends by social groups, evaluating learning returns to private education in India, and examining peer & teacher effects in rural China. Given my multidisciplinary background, I employ a variety of methods and approaches to address different types of questions, while thinking critically about the empirical process of knowledge production. 

Prior to starting my PhD, I have brought such a perspective to close to a decade of work in area of policy and development. Across multiple roles, I have worked closely with government institutions and civil society bodies to design, draft, implement, and evaluate large scale policy and programs. My policy inputs on environment, education and rural distress have informed India’s parliamentary debates; intergovernmental transfers taken into consideration by 15th Finance Commission; scholarship delivery and change management of bureaucracy implemented by Rajasthan Education department; and, those reforming lower court judicial hiring have been considered by Supreme Court of India (ex: here (para 100-101) and here (page 26)). 

My previous degrees are in B.A (Hons.) History, and Master of Economics in China Studies from India and China, respectively.

I can be reached at sg547 [at] umd.edu