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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.
 

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.

Associate Director, Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies

Sabrina Karim is an associate professor in the Department of Government. Her research focuses on conflict and peace processes, particularly state building in the aftermath of civil war.

Geographic Research Area: Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh

International Professor of Environmental and Indigenous Studies
Karim-Aly Kassam's research interests include human and environmental relations and indigenous ways of knowing.
Stephen and Evalyn Professor of American Studies Emerita

Geographic Research Area: India and United States

Teaching/Research Interests: Incarceration, political activism, ethnic activism, and gender

Associate Professor, House Professor, and Dean, Carl Becker House

Geographic Research Area: India

Teaching/Research Interests: Urbanization, planning theory, research methods, transborder/transdiscipline engaged learning

Graduate Student

Satish Kumar, a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Doctoral Fellow at TCI, is a PhD student in public policy at IIT Bombay. His research focuses on agriculture-nutrition linkages and diversification in semi-arid regions.

Acting Director, Southeast Asia Program (Spring 2025)

Sarosh Kuruvilla is Cornell University's Andrew J. Nathanson Family Professor of Industrial Relations, Asian Studies, and Public Affairs. He is also a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

Assistant Professor, Economics

Geographic Research Area: India

Teaching/Research Interest: Applied Economics & Policy, International Development, Economic Theory

Administrative Assistant
Assistant Professor of Health Equity and Public Policy

Geographic Research Area: South Asia, Brazil, Tanzania, Somalia, Nigeria, and the United States.