Assistant Professor at IIT Hyderabad
Aalok Khandekar is a Science and Technology Studies scholar and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology/ Sociology at the Department of Liberal Arts and Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Climate Change at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH). In recent years, two distinct but related concerns have been at the center of his scholarly attention. First, a concern with environmental and climate change governance in ‘southern city’ settings. Second, understanding and creating the conditions for interdisciplinary collaborations addressing urgent challenges, such as those presented by global climate change. Increasingly, much of his research has assumed a transnational character, where he has worked to establish and sustain networks of scholarship that are in conversation about and offer comparative perspective on shared concerns. Khandekar was a co-PI for the Cool Infrastructures research project. He also serves as the editor-in-chief of Engaging Science, Technology, and Society (ESTS), the open access journal of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S)
Executive Director at Hyderabad Urban Lab
Anant Maringanti, PhD is the Executive Director of Hyderabad Urban Lab, a multidisciplinary research organisation committed to advancing southern urbanism as theory and practice. He is a geographer with a PhD from the University of Minnesota and has taught graduate courses at the National University of Singapore and the University of Hyderabad. His research and teaching interests centre on questions of urbanisation and globalisation from the South Asian vantage point. He is currently heading the urban design intervention project “imagine @Low Cost Action Lab” or “i’Local” which brings together multiple design interventions to tackle waste, water, and sanitation issues across Hyderabad.
Swastik Harish is an urban development and capacity building expert with 22 years of experience in India. His research, practice and teaching portfolio includes land and housing for the urban poor, design and the development sector, evidence-based policy-making, and pedagogy for practitioners. Swastik has worked in and closely with diverse institutional forms including government, non-government, non-profit, for-profit, academic and community-based organizations. Contextual knowledge-creation and capacity building has evolved to be a central tenet in all his work with these stakeholders.
Senior Research Associate
Teja’s professional focus centers on harnessing geoinformation science to mitigate disaster risks and advance urban development. He has also developed and delivered courses on various topics, including urban risk and resilience, GIS-based hazard risk and vulnerability assessments, data visualization, and the utilization of earth observation data to monitor progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Teja holds a Master’s Degree in Geo-Information Sciences (GIS) and Earth Observation (EO), specializing in Natural Hazards and Disaster Risk Management from the University of Twente, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University.
Research Associate
Rittu is a Library and Information Science professional with a profound interest in data management. She completed her post-graduation in Library and Information Science from Central University of Tamil Nadu, and graduation in English Language and Literature from St. Teresa’s College, Kochi. She is interested in exploring opportunities in open-source data management platforms and in comprehending methods of data storage, processing and retrieval.
Research Associate
Tanaya is an urban researcher. She holds an M.A in Natural Resources and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Her research interests broadly lies at the intersection of Climate Change, Adaptation and Gender. In the Cool Infrastructures project, she has worked on the themes of gendered and occupational vulnerability to heatwaves, community adaptation strategies, land tenure arrangements of the settlement and its spatial history.
Research Associate
Phanisri Soumya did her Integrated Masters of Arts from University of Hyderabad and is an Urban Fellow (2020-21) from Indian Institute for Human Settlements. As part of the Cool Infrastructures project, she was responsible for drafting and finalising the survey instrument, and carrying out pilot surveys and secondary research. Her research interests span across urban informality, gender, caste, and labour.
Research Associate
Arpita is an architect, artist, urban planner, and researcher, with an MSc. in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Amsterdam and is an alumnus of the Urban Fellows Programme at IIHS, India. As part of her Master’s thesis, she explored the impacts of diverse Social Rental Housing Management (SRHM) frameworks on the security, safety, and sociability within Dutch social housing neighbourhoods. Access to affordable, adequate, and climate-resilient housing remains her core subject of interest which she explores by working with diverse organisations such as domestic worker unions, NGOs, research think tanks, etc.
Research Associate
Abhijit is an architect. He completed his M.Arch. in Architecture from Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee and B.Arch. from School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi. Abhijit has a focus on improving building energy efficiency. His research interests are inclined towards architectural design for mixed-use development, urban design, building energy simulation, thermal performance of a building, daylight simulation, and spatial data analysis.
Research Associate
Andrew is a sociologist and researcher. He is interested in urbanisation, social theory, and in the social dimensions of urban infrastructure.
Research Associate
Meghana (they/them) is a M.A. Development Studies graduate from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. They are interested in everything about the urban. Currently, they are associated with the Cool Infrastructures project, where they are studying urban heat, air coolers, and water infrastructures in informal settlements of Hyderabad. They are interested in ethnographic work and take delight in making detailed ethnographic notes.
Research Associate
N Sai Venkata Sarath Chandra holds an MTech in Climate Change from Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. He has been associated with the Cool Infrastructures project for more than 2 years where he worked on exploring how extreme heat is impacting human health in the Hyderabad region. His work under the project has been recently published
in August 2023 in The Journal of Climate Change and Health. He has previously made extensive contributions in Indian
English media on how climate change and extreme heat impacts human health.
Research Associate
Anushree is a Ph.D. scholar at the Department of Liberal Arts, IIT Hyderabad. She holds an MA in Development Studies from TISS Mumbai and a B. Tech. (ICT) from DA-IICT Gandhinagar. She is interested in exploring technologies as cultural artifacts, and their intersections with labor and place-making practices. In this project, she looked at heat from a gendered lens, understanding vulnerability and adaptations of women in the field site, Singareni Colony.
Spatial Data Analyst
Uzma is primarily an urban planner who loves finding patterns and connecting dots. She has previously worked as a Disaster Management Professional dedicated to minimizing the damage from natural and man-made disasters through effective management.
As part of Cool Infrastructures, she was involved in processing, analyzing and interpreting spatial data of the settlement. She also worked towards exploring the heat vulnerability parameters for the neighbourhood.
Postdoctoral fellow at IIT Hyderabad
Kiranmayi earned her doctoral degree in Urban Planning and Public Policy from The University of Texas at Arlington. Her doctoral research was aimed towards assessing the impact of urban planning policies on carbon-dioxide emissions through empirical evidences and examined the significance of urban planning policies as an effective tool in climate change mitigation. Her research interests deal with climate change adaptation, livelihood and environmental sustainability and an interdisciplinary understanding of the human dimensions of environmental/climate change with the aim to inform policy and action.
Research Associate
Rahul is a Research Associate at IIT Hyderabad, having a keen interest in natural and social sciences research. He holds an M.Sc. in Water Policy and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and a B.Tech in from Pandit Deendayal Energy University. His research interest lies in the domain of sustainable development and social policy in the context of climate change through an interdisciplinary approach with inputs from science, policy and practice. He is especially interested in understanding the dynamics of human-infrastructure interactions.
Research Associate
Goutham is an urban researcher with an interest in housing, livelihoods, policy, governance, informality, and poverty. He received his B.A. in Social Sciences and M.A. in Urban Policy and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. He researched on the role of air conditioner repair and rental services in regulating heat impact among households in Hyderabad, and worked on documenting the spatial history of the field site, Singareni Colony, Hyderabad.
Research Associate
Aarti finds it difficult to categorize herself professionally and keep within one disciplinary boundary. Her interest areas are wide and broadly intersect with topics that are covered under studies of development. She has previously worked as a research associate in IDC, School of Design, IIT Bombay and finished her master’s in Development Studies from the Liberal Arts Department, IIT Hyderabad. In Cool Infrastructures, she was involved in studying ice— its history, manufacture, distribution, uses and inter-linkages with cooling practices, in Hyderabad.
Field Associate