Director, SOAS South Asia Institute Professor Edward Simpson Ethnography of western India; social theory and the Indian Ocean; disaster and reconstruction anthropology; post-colonial rural change; infrastructure development in South Asia
Professor in Anthropology Professor David Mosse Anthropology of mental health and psychiatry; anthropology of organisations and activism, international development, caste, Dalit rights, anthropology of Christianity, South Asian society and popular religion, environmental history and natural resources management.
Professor in Anthropology Professor Sanjay Srivastava Urban anthropology; consumer cultures; masculinity studies; middle-class cultures; ethnographies of the state and capital; India.
Professor of Social Anthropology; Director, GRNPP Professor Emma Crewe Anthropology of organisations (especially parliaments and other legislatures); politicians and people in democracies; international development; relationship between research, policy and practice; UK, South Asia and Ethiopia.
Professor Jens Lerche India; labour, social movements and globalisation; labour and the ILO; labour and caste in India; agrarian political economy.
Professor in Political Sociology and Development Studies Professor Navtej K Purewal Bordering logics; feminism; gender and social policy; reproductive rights; girls' education; coloniality; neoliberal development; South Asia; India and Pakistan
Professor Jonathan Goodhand South and Central Asia; complex political emergencies, humanitarian aid; NGO capacity building, aid, conflict and development
Senior Teaching Fellow in Political Economy Dr Feyzi Ismail NGOs and social movements, politics and development in Nepal and South Asia, global protest and change, alternatives to neoliberalism and imperialism.
Professor Jens Lerche India; labour, social movements and globalisation; labour and the ILO; labour and caste in India; agrarian political economy.
Dr Alessandra Mezzadri International trade, global commodity chains; production networks and industrial systems; informality and processes of labour informalisation; inequality and social structures of oppression; gender, feminisms and reproduction; the political economy of the garment industry; the political economy of India
Professor of Development Studies Professor Peter P Mollinga South Asia, Central Asia; comparative political sociology of water resources and development; technology and agrarian change; boundary work in natural resources management; interdisciplinary social theory.
Professorial Research Associate Professor Tom Selwyn Anthropology of tourism, pilgrimage, cultural heritage; the Mediterranean, in particular Palestine/Israel.
Dr Paolo Novak Trans-nationality with particular reference to migration; refugee regime; borders and NGOs.
Professor of International Development Policy Professor Nigel Poole Research: Agri-health and nutrition, natural resources and food value chains, poverty reduction.
Professor of International Food, Agriculture and Health Professor Bhavani Shankar Research: Analysis of economic drivers of over- and under-nutrition, nutrition transition, dietary policy evaluation, sustainable nutrition and the role of agriculture in enabling better nutrition and health.
Reader in the Theory and Politics of Development Dr Subir Sinha South Asia; social movements; civil society; the environment; institutions; agrarian questions; Marxist and postcolonial theory; Social theory in Development studies.
Professor of Development Economics Professor Antonio Andreoni Production Capabilities and Technological Change; Industrial Ecosystems and Global Value Chains; Social Conditions of Innovation, Financialisation and Corporate Governance; Structural Transformation and Industrial Policy; Sustainable Industrialisation and Energy Policy; Digitalisation, Platforms and Competition Policy; Political Economy of Industrial Policy; Comparative Political Economy; Southern and Eastern Africa.
Lecturer in Economics Dr Sonali Deraniyagala South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa: technical change and productivity in manufacturing, industrial policy, the impact of trade liberalisation on manufacturing performance
Professor of Economics Professor Mushtaq Khan South and South East Asia: institutional economics and political economy; the economics of rent seeking, corruption and patron-client networks; late industrialisation and the state
Head of Department Dr Satoshi Miyamura Regions: South and East Asia. Countries: India, Japan. Subjects: Development economics, Labour economics, Institutional economics, Labour-management bargaining; Research methods in economics.
Dr Pallavi Roy Pallavi is a Senior lecturer in International Economics at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at SOAS.
Professor of Economics Professor Pasquale Scaramozzino Macroeconomics; fiscal policy; applied econometrics
Professor of Asian and Military History Professor Michael W. Charney The history of Buddhist societies in South and Southeast Asia and of culture, technology, and warfare in colonial Africa and Asia
Lecturer in the History of South Asia Dr Roy Fischel History of precolonial South Asia, in particular Muslim polities and societies; the Deccan, 1300-1700; South Asia and the early modern Muslim world.
Dr Eleanor Newbigin History of modern South Asia, particularly the transition to independence; gender, family and law in colonial and post-colonial India
Dr Shabnum Tejani Nineteenth and twentieth century social and intellectual history, particularly of the Bombay Presidency; communalism and nationalism in India; debates around secularism and religious intolerance
Professor Peter Robb The history of modern South Asia; early Calcutta, c.1780-1830, Indian agrarian history, especially Bihar and Eastern India.
Reader in the History of South Asian Art & Archaeology Dr Crispin Branfoot Architecture, sculpture and painting in South Asia, especially in southern India; pilgrimage, sacred geography; material religion; histories of archaeology, conservation and collecting.
Dr Heather Elgood, MBE Dr Heather Elgood is the Course Director of the Diploma in Asian Art. She is a specialist in Persian, Jain, Sultanate and Mughal manuscript painting as well as the ritual arts of Hinduism.
Lecturer in Islamicate South Asia Dr James Caron Islam in South Asia; Afghanistan and Pakistan; Indo-Persianate sociocultural history; transnational non-Western history; activism and social movements.
Professor Rachel Dwyer Hindi Cinema; Indian popular culture; Indian film; Hinduism; new middle classes; Mumbai/Bombay
Professorial Research Associate Professor Michael J Hutt Nepali literature; the Nepali media; Nepali politics; Bhutanese refugees.
Research Fellow Dr Stefanie Lotter Nepali society and culture; museology; social and cultural anthropology of the Himalaya; elite studies; heritage studies
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute Dr David Lunn 19th- and 20th-century Hindi and Urdu literature; cinema; music; journalism; north Indian literary history; intellectual history; literary translation; literary and cultural history of Southeast Asia; Malay; comparative literature; postcolonial studies.
Professor Emerita of Hindi and South Asian Literature Professor Francesca Orsini Hindi Literature; North Indian literary cultures; Hindi; Urdu.
Lecturer in Law Dr Samia Bano Muslim Family law in the UK and Europe, Family Law, Multiculturalism, Citizenship, Islamic Jurisprudence and Human Rights, Feminist and Critical Social and Political Theories, Issues concerning the rights of Muslim women and Gender Equality.
Professor of Law Professor Philippe Cullet International and domestic law and policy concerning the environment, natural resources, water, sanitation, agriculture, sustainable development, climate change, health; social rights; intellectual property; India.
Lecturer in Law Dr Vanja Hamzić Law and Society of South Asia (esp. Pakistan), South East Asia (esp. Indonesia) and West Africa (esp. Senegal); Islamic Law; Legal and Social History; Legal and Social Anthropology; Gender, Sexuality and the Law; Colonialism and Slavery in the 18th and 19th Centuries; Marxism; Critical Theory; Global Law/Governance; Cold War Studies.
Lecturer in Law Dr Kanika Sharma Law and colonialism; Law and society in South Asia (especially gender issues); Law, image, and architecture; Psychoanalytic jurisprudence; Critical legal theory
Senior Lecturer in Law Dr Mayur Suresh Anti-terror laws (particularly of South Asia); law and anthropology; legal theory (particularly on theories of emergency legality); sexuality and gender identity in South Asia.
Emeritus Professor of Law Professor Werner Menski Classical and modern Hindu law; Muslim Law; Laws of South Asia; Family law; Comparative law; South Asians in the UK; Immigration law; Ethnic minorities
Professor of South Asian Law Professor Martin W Lau Laws of South Asia; comparative environmental law, Islamic law
Lecturer in Media in Development and International Journalisms Dr Somnath Batabyal South Asia with a focus on India; transnational news spheres; Development discourses and its articulation in mainstream and alternate news forums; environmental politics.
Senior Teaching Fellow Mr Murali Shanmugavelan India; Tamil Nadu; caste (and media); Dalits; mass media; critical media theory; mobile phones; digital media practices including mobile apps; ethnography of communication and media; social anthropology
Emeritus Professor of Musicology Professor Richard Widdess Historical, analytical, ethnographic and cognitive approaches to music of South Asia; music, cognition and language.
Senior Lecturer in Music and South Asian Studies Dr Richard Williams Music of South Asia; Hindustani classical music; historical ethnomusicology; cultural history; historical musicology and musical aesthetics; lyric, song, and musical literature; music and gender; music and religion; history of emotions
Professor Rochana Bajpai Contemporary political theory, particularly multiculturalism; comparative political thought, particularly political ideologies; modern Indian politics
Dr Sutha Nadarajah International security; peacebuilding; securitized development; civil wars; North-South relations.
Professor of Politics Professor Matthew J Nelson Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Thought, South Asia, Islam, non-elite politics, democracy.
Dr Avinash Paliwal Avinash specialises in foreign and security policy analysis with regional focus on South Asia, Afghanistan, and Myanmar.
Professor in the Study of Religions and Philosophies Professor Peter Flügel Jaina Studies; South Asian History and Culture; Anthropology and Sociology of Religion.
Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute Dr Sian Hawthorne Narrativity; Cultural Memory; Religion and Gender; Feminist Historiography; Postcolonial theory; Postsecularism and gender; Intellectual history in the study of religions.
Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism Professor Almut Hintze Professor Hintze takes an interest in all aspects of Zoroastrianism, the religion of pre-Islamic Iran.
Professor Ulrich Pagel History of Buddhism in Tibet, Mahāyāna Buddhism, Kanjur Studies, Vinaya, Religions of Central Asia, Tibetan, Sanskrit.
Professor in the Study of Religions and World Philosophies Professor Cosimo Zene Anthropology of religion, theory in the study of religions, continental philosophy, Gramsci and religion, intercultural and inter-religious dialogue, minorities (Dalits), mysticism and heresy, non-Western Christianities, Mediterranean anthropology; South-Asia (India, Bangladesh), Sardinia, world philosophies.
Research Associate, SOAS South Asia Institute Dr Ayesha Siddiqa Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa is an expert on civil-military relations in South Asia. She has worked extensively on Pakistan military - its politics, decision-making and arms procurement. In the past few years her work has focused on understanding the drivers of radicalism and militancy in Punjab and Sindh that led her to explore the ideological and philosophical linkages between South Asia and the Middle East with an emphasis on transfer of knowledge since the late 18th century.
