Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania
B.A. University of Pennsylvania (Phi Beta Kappa)
Current Courses at Haverford:
HLTH 115: Introduction to Health Studies
HLTH 215: Global Health Environments
HLTH 318: Traditional Medicine: Histories and Ethnographies
Research & Select Publications:
My research is focused on understanding the history of environmental change, health, and healing in agrarian regions in South Asia and the wider Indian Ocean world from roughly 1,000 CE to the present. I am particularly interested in understanding how peasants and small-scale cultivators embodied the commercialization of agriculture through seasonal and chronic illnesses and how, in turn, they built dynamic regional and inter-regional healing institutions and practices to improve their health and chances of survival. I have conducted archival and field research in India, the United Arab Emirates, Oman and the UK, and have lived, researched and taught university courses (both classroom and experiential) for over a decade in the Indian Ocean region, as well as in the U.S. at the University of Pennsylvania, North Carolina State University and New York University.
Cultivating Health: Peasants and the Globalization of Medicine in Agrarian Punjab c. 1250-1930 (forthcoming book)
"Review of Ulbe Bosma and Anthony Webster, eds. Commodities, Ports and Asian Maritime Trade Since 1750" in Agricultural History, Summer 2016.
"Sanitising commercialisation: health and the politics of 'waste' in Colonial Punjab" in Sandip Hazaaresingh and Harro Maat, eds. Local Subversions of Colonial Cultures: Commodities and Anti-Commodities in Global History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 125-146.
"Of health and harvests: seasonal mortality and commercial rice cultivation in the Punjab and Bengal regions of South Asia" in Francesca Bray, Peter Coclanis, Edda Fields-Black and Dagmar Shafer eds. Rice: Global Networks and New Histories. Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 245-274.
"South Asian environmental history: a review of The British Empire and the Natural World" in Economic and Political Weekly. 7 Jun 2014 49 (23).
“Pursuing protection from disease: the making of smallpox prophylactic practice in colonial Punjab” in Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 2009 Spring 83 (1): 167-190.
"Review of Gunnel Cederlöf, Landscapes and the Law: Environmental Politics, Regional Histories, and Contests Over Nature" in Environmental History, v.14, no.2, April 2009: 379-380.
As an undergraduate student, I pursued my degree part-time while working full-time in a cancer genetics laboratory. During this time, I co-authored five publications on the molecular genetics of pediatric soft tissue sarcomas in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Human Molecular Genetics, Cancer Genetics and Cytogenetics, Cancer Research and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I am always happy to talk about the fun of lab, field and archival research!
National Fellowships Awarded:
Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (IAS) Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors
Social Science Research Council-CUP Book Award Fellowship
Social Science Research Council-ACLS International Dissertation Research Fellowship
Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship
Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies
Academic Service:
Editorial Advisory Board, Medical History Cambridge University Press, 2012-2017
Past fellowship/article/book/book proposal reviews performed for: Journal of Asian Studies, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Medical History, Cambridge University Press, the Wellcome Trust, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (School of Historical Studies), among others.