Akanksha Adya is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Krea University. Her teaching and research aim to decolonize global psychology by developing a psychosocial understanding of maternal subjectivity grounded in and produced within cultural, historical, and relational contexts.

Drawing on cultural, feminist, and critical approaches, her scholarship examines the lived experiences and sociocultural meanings attached to motherhood and mothering in India. In continuation, her doctoral dissertation interrogated the first time mothers’ meaning construction and negotiation of globally exported “child-centered” infant feeding advice in rapidly changing local contexts of family change and neoliberal globalization in New Delhi, India. More recently, her scholarship explores maternal subjectivity and well-being in later life at the intersections of psychoanalysis, aging, and care.

She is the first recipient of the Researchers in the Global South Grant Award from the Society for Psychological Society for Social Issues, American Psychological Association (Division 9). Her doctoral dissertation received grant support from the Taraknath Das Foundation, Columbia University, USA.

At Krea, she has designed and taught elective courses, Motherhood, Family, Childcare in India and Psychology as a Human Science. She has presented her scholarly work at various national and international forums, and published papers in peer reviewed journals including the Women & Therapy and Pediatrics journal.

Previously, Dr Adya trained as a psychodynamic psychotherapist from Ambedkar University, Delhi, and specialised in attending to mental health concerns of women. Her research and teaching interests include Motherhood Studies, Culture and Psychology, Feminism and Psychology, Women and Mental Health, Human Development, and Qualitative Research Methods.