The CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program provides dynamic early career researchers with a one- to two-year opportunity to establish their profile as scholars of contemporary India. The fellowship has no teaching obligation, providing young scholars with valuable time to advance their own research agenda. The Center also provides support in connecting Fellows to its considerable networks among scholars and policymakers both in the U.S. and in India. Ideally, Fellows will pursue their research in conjunction with CASI’s own projects, which they are frequently given the opportunity to lead. Fellows also often receive modest funding support for pursuing their own independent projects.
Fellows are also expected to play a key role in the Center’s thriving intellectual community. Fellows organize the academic year seminar series, plan workshops, and contribute to the Center’s working paper series. They also serve as mentors to the incoming CASI-affiliated graduate students and on selection committees for CASI Student Programs’ annual competitions.
In 2021-22 CASI offered two such fellowships, and now three in 2022-23, an expansion it seeks to make permanent. CASI has supported seven young scholars through this program since 2010. Four hold academic positions, tenure track and tenured, in India, Singapore, and the U.S. Most have continued their CASI affiliations as key research collaborators on the Center’s current research themes including agricultural markets and urban India.
Applications and recruitment occur during the Spring Semester starting in January. Please do not write to CASI Faculty about the Center’s Fellowship Opportunities. If you have questions about Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program, please email: casi@sas.upenn.edu
2024-26 CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Matt Barlow
Matt Barlow is an environmental anthropologist by training with interests in science & technology studies, environmental humanities, and critical geography. Using ethnographic and historical methods, his research focuses on how British engineering and infrastructure building in the 19th and 20th centuries continues to shape dominant approaches to environmental governance and urban development in postcolonial India. His Ph.D. dissertation, Waste in the Tropics: Urban Environments and (post)colonial Infrastructure in Kochi, India explores negotiations over how to address a waste crisis in Kochi's backwaters throughout 2018-2019. As Climate Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CASI, Matt will be working on his first book project titled Weathering Waste, while also contributing to Nikhil Anand's ongoing project, "Stories of Climate Action: Negotiating Planning in Mumbai's Wetscapes."
Kiran Kumbhar
Kiran Kumbhar is a historian, writer, and former physician, working primarily on the history of medicine and public health in modern India. His Ph.D. dissertation explored the problem of "declining" public trust in biomedical doctors and highlighted the major role that caste-based privilege has played in the history of the Indian medical profession. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on the dissertation. He has taught courses in the history of science, history of medicine and public health, and South Asian history at Harvard, Yale, and Johns Hopkins. Kiran also works to bring academic scholarship into the larger public discourse through writing and podcasting. In 2022-23 he worked with the Suno India platform on a podcast series: "Becoming Modern: Healthcare and History in India." His writings have been published in The Wire, Scroll, The Hindu, The Times of India, fiftytwo, The Swaddle, and Quartz.
Shahana Sheikh
Shahana Sheikh studies political parties, political behavior, and party-voter linkages, with a regional focus on South Asia. Her research agenda is centered on how party strategy, campaigns, and political participation in developing democracies are shaped by significant transformations associated with development—especially, shifts in media and communication technology, urbanization, and environmental degradation. Shahana completed her Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. Her dissertation examined how Internet-based communication technologies—including social media—affect the behavior of political parties and voters in India. She uses a variety of research methods, including in-depth, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, grounded theory, content analysis, surveys, and survey experiments. Prior to her Ph.D., Shahana was a policy researcher in the areas of urban governance and public finance in India. You can read more about her research at shahanasheikh.com.
Former CASI Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Amrita A. Kurian (2023-24)
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2024-25)
Sarath Pillai (2023-24)
Kenneth Pye Visiting Assistant Professor, South Asian History, Southern Methodist University
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2024-25)
Shikhar Singh (2023-24)
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Duke University
Nafis Aziz Hasan (2020-22)
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2022-23)
Naveen Bharathi (2020-22)
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2022-23)
Gautam Nair (2019-20)
Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Bilal Baloch (2017-19)
Co-founder & COO, GlobalWonks
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2020-21)
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Ilka Vari-Lavoisier (2015-17)
Project Manager and Postdoctoral Fellow
The ERC project HOMInG
University of Trento
Neelanjan Sircar (2013-15)
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Ashoka University
Visiting Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2020-21)
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Anit Mukherjee (2012-13)
Associate Professor, South Asia Programme
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2020-21)
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Mekhala Krishnamurthy (2010-12)
Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology
Ashoka University
CASI Non-Resident Visiting Scholar (2020-21)
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