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South Asia Program

Cornell University

People

Faculty

SAP has more than 50 core and affiliated faculty from across Cornell’s colleges and schools, working in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. SAP faculty and language instructors offer classes in Bengali, Hindi, Nepali, Pali, Persian, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sinhala, Tamil, Tibetan, and Urdu.

Steering Committee

The SAP steering committee provides internal faculty leadership from SAP's core faculty, collaborating with the director to set goals and priorities for SAP and to develop innovative programming and curricula related to South Asia.

Advisory Council 

The SAP advisory council is composed largely of persons based outside Cornell. With the aim of making our governance structure more global, the advisory council ensures that SAP fulfills its intellectual and educational mission in a rapidly changing international context. 

Visiting Scholars

SAP hosts visiting scholars from South Asia and elsewhere, including Fulbright fellows, our own South Asian Studies fellows, and other scholars, writers, and artists, who collaborate with Cornell faculty and students on South Asia Program activities.

Graduate Students

Students who minor in South Asian Studies work across Cornell's colleges and schools, in more than two dozen disciplines.

FLAS Fellows

SAP awards Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships to outstanding students pursuing South Asian language and area studies. The U.S. Department of Education allocates these highly competitive four-year grants to SAP in recognition of our world-class language and area study program.

Staff

SAP staff have years of combined experience working in international studies, and they play an active role in enhancing the world's knowledge about South Asia.
 

Peter Hobbs

Adjunct Professor and Associate Director, IP-CALS academic program

Peter Hobbs is a crop scientist and agronomist, with a research, teaching, and extension focus on rice and wheat systems and conservation agriculture and rural development.

Geographic Research Area: South Asia, Latin America, and Africa

David Holmberg

Professor Emeritus, Anthropology

David Holmberg advises all Cornell Fulbright applicants. Find out more about Fulbright at Cornell.

Labib Hossain

Graduate Student

Labib is a Ph.D. student in the History of Architecture and Urban Development program. Prior to Cornell, Labib graduated from University of Pennsylvania in M.S. in Architecture program under the supervision of Dilip da Cunha and Anuradha Mathur. He received his B.Arch. and M.Arch.

Sharif Hozoori

IIE-SRF Fellow and Visiting Scholar
Sharif Hozoori’s area of research includes Afghanistan politics and foreign policy, identity politics, and cultural studies. He is a 2024 Global Public Voices freedom of expression fellow.

Jessie Hughes

Graduate Student

Degree: PHD, Natural Resources

Language: Nepali

Research interests: drivers of human migration, social-ecological systems, South Asia relations, natural resource management and climate change, urban development, bioculture, and 21st-century land ethics

Parijat Jha

Graduate Student

Degree: PHD, Anthropology

Language: Urdu

Ekta Joshi

Graduate student

Ekta Joshi is a PhD student in the field of applied economics and management. She is interested in studying how agriculture can be an effective instrument for economic development in developing countries.

Barkha Kagliwal

Graduate Student

Barkha is a PhD student at the Department of Science and Technology Studies. In her current work Barkha examines the role of technology in changing the food system in India. She focuses on the packaged foods market to bring out the interaction between science, technology and social order.

Ravi Kanbur

T. H. Lee Professor of World Affairs

Ravi Kanbur is well-known for his role in policy analysis and engagement in international development. He has served on the senior staff of the World Bank.

Shrey Kapoor

Graduate Student

Shrey is a PhD candidate in Development Sociology, and is interested in the contemporary articulations of neoliberalism, Hindutva and the dispossession of marginalized groups in favor of capital-intensive development projects, with a regional focus on Gujarat.