My upbringing as a child of South Asian immigrants raised in the American South, had a significant impact on my academic journey. I became interested in social justice issues at an early age and have worked at several community-based organizations led by low-wage immigrant workers and women of color in New York City. My academic interests include the intersections of food and environmental justice, social movements, Black studies, solidarity economics, cooperative education, healing justice and community-based learning. I was formerly the faculty sponsor of the collectively run student café called The Flaming Eggplant, which served as an incubator for cooperative development in the South Sound area for the past twenty years and a source of ethically produced food on campus. I have also completed extensive training in yoga and Ayurveda (an ancient system of healing from South Asia), which I integrate into my teaching through somatic and trauma-informed teaching practices.
Education
Ph.D., Sociology, Stony Brook University, 2016; M.A., Sociology, Stony Brook University, 2010; M.A., South Asian Studies, Columbia University, 2007; B.A., French and Anthropology, Tulane University, 2002.
Teaching Style
My teaching style focuses on education for transformation and liberation. Drawing from Freirian approaches to popular education, I support students in connecting theory & reflection to practice through experiential activities like volunteering with local community-based organizations, and hands-on food and gardening related projects. I further support students in developing systems thinking or understanding how "personal problems are actually social problems," in part by studying histories of how our systems came to be, especially from the perspective of the subaltern (the most marginalized by society). My teaching brings a "desire-centered lens" by actively studying vibrant alternatives to systems in crisis, in addition to critically analyzing the root causes of social problems. Hence, critique is not intended to paralyze, but rather, inform just alternatives that transform (rather than recreate) systemic injustices.