Category: Faculty & Staff Spotlight

Dr Madhavilatha Maganti, Associate Professor, Psychology, SIAS, was involved in multiple academic engagements recently. 

Dr Madhavilatha delivered a flash talk on 18 February 2026 at the Institute for the Science of Early Years and Youth (ISEY), University of East London, presenting work from the Infant and child Development Lab on ‘Analysing caregiver-infant interactions with high and low-risk infants’ as part of the workshop on ‘Novel Methods for Parent-Child Interaction Research.’

She also participated in a 2-day workshop on ‘Naturalistic Experimentation of Child Development (NECD)’ on 19-20 February 2026.

The workshop highlighted methods for analysing naturalistic experimental data in developmental research. Dr Madhavilatha presented Krea’s lab work on parent-child interactions and neurodevelopmental studies in low- and middle-income settings, addressing practical challenges in community-based research, cultural diversity, and inclusive research practices.

From 24–25 February 2026, Dr Madhavilatha held discussions with faculty at the University of Exeter on potential collaboration and research partnerships, and presented an overview of Psychology at Krea, highlighting its research laboratories and faculty research interests. 

On 26 February 2026, Dr Madhavilatha delivered a talk titled ‘The Multimodal Nature of Early Experiences in High and Low-Risk Infants: What’s Going on in Their Tiny Minds?’ for MSc Clinical Psychology students and Psychology faculty at the University of Exeter, as part of the Think Tank/CYP Wellbeing Network seminar.

Dr Vivek Tewary, Assistant Professor, Mathematics, SIAS and Sayantan Datta, Assistant Professor of Practice, Krea-CWP led a two-day workshop on ‘Strategies of Reading & Writing for Effective Teaching of STEMM Disciplines’ at GITAM Deemed to be University, Visakhapatnam.

In this interactive two-day workshop conducted through 27 and 28 February 2026, they discussed how STEMM faculty and research scholars can train themselves and their students to be more effective readers and writers in their disciplines. The workshop focussed on equipping attendees with the pedagogical skills required to enhance their students’ disciplinary engagement—by learning strategic classroom techniques for reading and writing as they play out in science disciplines. Sessions included Teaching Students to Read Scientific Texts/Papers, Reading Equations & Figures in Scientific Texts/Papers, Writing About Scientific Concepts, Using Worksheets as a Pedagogical Tool, Using Analogies & Definitions, and Integrating Reading-Writing in STEMM Curricula. The workshop was well-appreciated and attended by about 25 faculty and research scholars from mechanical engineering; electrical, electronic, and communication engineering; computer science engineering; life science; mathematics; and management sciences.

Dr Proma Raychaudhury, Assistant Professor, Politics, SIAS has signed a contract with Oxford University Press (USA) for her monograph, Institutional Belonging: Women and Party Politics in West Bengal, India (OUP Series: Studies in Feminist Institutionalism).
The book will offer a feminist institutionalist study of political party cultures in India to delineate the institutional belonging and political self-makings of women party members. It will illustrate the play of gendered formal rules and informal practices that condition and constrain women’s representation, participation, and subjective experiences of belonging in political party cultures.

Dr Henry Vumjou, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Philosohy, SIAS, authored a paper titled Where Kant’s Hospitality Meets ‘Zo Hospitality’? published by Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart in the book East Meets West: Justice, Law, and Politics. The volume is part of the Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie – Beihefte series, edited by Makoto Usami and Hidehiko Adachi.

Dr Anannya Dasgupta, Director, Centre for Writing & Pedagogy (Krea-CWP) and Associate Professor, Literature, SIAS, conducted a grant writing workshop for the Social Sciences and Humanities at GITAM University, Bengaluru on 27 February 2026. This workshop is being hosted by the Centre for Asian Studies for its faculty members.

Dr Sayandeb Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Professor, Literature, SIAS, published a review titled Ritwik Ghatak, Between Myth and History, of the book Unmechanical: Ritwik Ghatak in 50 Fragments, edited by Shamya Dasgupta, in The Wire.

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Professor Jayaram Ramakrishnan, Professor of Practice, Finance, IFMR GSB, delivered a webinar titled, ‘Is Activity Based Costing (ABC) for MSMEs too?’ to the members of ICAI on 7 February 2026. The session was organised on behalf of the MSME and Start up Promotion Board (MSPB) of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

​Dr Chirag Dhara, Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies, SIAS delivered an invited talk titled ‘Physical limits to the circular economy’ at the XIth Biennial Climate Conference at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai on 20 February 2026. The conference is titled, ‘Climate action, sustainability, and equity in a VUCA World: Development Pathways for India and the Developing World’.

A chapter authored by Dr Avinash Ediga,Teaching Fellow, Sociology and Social Anthropology, SIAS titled, Becoming ‘Serious Men’:Politics of Emotion and the Disciplining of Desires in an Indian Coaching Town, has been published in an edited volume titled Classed Emotions: Navigating Social Class and Emotions in the Urban Indian and Diasporic Contexts.

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