Chattopadhyay, Sohini

Sohini Chattopadhyay is a Ph.D. Candidate with a focus on South Asian studies, urban studies, history of science, and British imperial history. Her doctoral dissertation looks at science and technological uses and innovations in moments of mass deaths such as famines, epidemics, and riots; and how these reorganized the knowledge systems around mortality and transformed social relations in colonial South Asian cities. She has previously studied at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), and Presidency College (Kolkata).

Her dissertation research is funded by Columbia University Hofstadter Fellowship. She has also been awarded the International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC-IDRF) and The Junior Research Fellowship from the American Institute for Indian Studies (AIIS) for research in India and the UK.  Previously, she has held summer fellowships including the History in Action Award, the Ischia School of Life Sciences Summer Fellowship (Ischia, Naples), and AIIS Summer Language Fellowship.

Sohini has held teaching fellowships in four courses: South Asia I with Manan Ahmed, South Asia II with Anupama Rao, Modern Middle East with Rashid Khalidi, and the History of American Public Health with James Colgrove. She has also held a year-long Editorial Assistant position for Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

She has coordinated monthly meetings and talks for the Comparative Histories of Medicine and Health in the Global South, and for Geographies of Injustice. In June 2020, she co-organized a hybrid conference on Indian Ocean Urbanism with her colleague Laura Yan. She has also contributed to the Making and Knowing Minimal Digital Edition.

Sohini is also interested in public history. Some of her recent engagements are available on scroll.in, The Telegraph, The Print, Quartz, SSRC Items, Radio Sofia (IIM Calcutta). She edits a web journal called Borderlines that seeks to rethink theory through research situated in South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Currently, she is located in Mumbai for archival research.