Research experience
February 2020 – ongoing: Assegno di ricerca at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna
September 2019 – January 2020: Assegno di ricerca at the Department of Management, University of Bologna.
Responsibilities: desk research on cultural policies of varied levels of public institutions (national, regional and European) dealing with the question of accountability; as well as focus group studies to be carried out with major stakeholders in museums, libraries and archives of Regione Emilia-Romagna. The goal was to act as consultants for the region and provide them suggestions to improve their public offering. The research was funded by the region of Emilia-Romagna.
September 2017 to September 2019: Postdoctoral researcher at the Division of Science, Technology and Society, Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Responsibilities: research (80% of the working hours) and teaching activities (20%).
At this job, I developed the following research projects: sensemaking of digital money and digital payments among Indian women, focusing on issues of financial inclusion through the perspective of social construction of technology (and gendered understanding of technology); mapping gender gap and women’s participation in creating and curating content on Wikipedia; interrogating science, technology and innovation policies and norm-critical ideas of innovation, such as grassroots, local, frugal innovative practices in marginalized communities. The first project was supported by STINT, a Swedish initiation grant (for which I was a co-applicant) for partnerships between Swedish and non-European universities.
In terms of teaching activities, I was co-instructor of a Master’s level course titled ‘Social innovation and social entrepreneurship’ offered to students of industrial engineering and management at Chalmers. I also contributed to modules in courses such as ‘Gender, technology and society’ and ‘Digitalisation and society’ which are taught by other professors. Furthermore, I supervised a Bachelor’s and a Master’s thesis on issues of gender, culture and technology.
Educational qualifications
2013-17: PhD in ‘Science, Cognition and Technology’ at the International Centre for the History of Universities and Science, Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna. Supervisors: Anna Guagnini (Department of Philosophy and Communication) and Luca Zan (Department of Management). Dissertation title: Institutional Narratives and their Role in Communication of Science and Technology: a Study of Public Science Museums and Centres in India.
2011-13: International Master’s/MSc (Laurea Magistrale) in GIOCA (Graduate Degree in the Innovation and Organization of Culture and the Arts) at the School of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Bologna. Dissertation title: Presenting the past to the present public: an appraisal of Indian science museums. Result: 110/110 (con lode)
2008-10: Master of Philosophy, English (specialization in sociolinguistics), University of Hyderabad. Dissertation title: Indian Food (Writing) in English. Result: GPA 9.44/10 (with distinction)
2005-07: Master of Arts, English (specialization in literature and linguistics), University of Hyderabad. Result: GPA 9.37/10 (with distinction)
2002-05: Bachelor of Arts, English, History and Political Science, University of Calcutta. Result: High second class with honours.
Teaching experience
2018-20: Specific modules for Master’s level courses on ‘Gender, technology and society’, ‘Digital Policy and Economics’ and ‘Digitalization and Society’ at the Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg.
2018-19: Co-instructor for the Master’s level course ‘Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship’ at the Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg.
2016-17: Tutor for the Master’s level course ‘Language and Power in the English-speaking World’ at School of Political Science, University of Bologna. I created modules on Business English for Master’s level students of Public Administration.
2016-17: Tutor/Co-instructor for the Master’s level course ‘Museums and Scientific Institutions’ at School of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Bologna
2013-15: Tutor at School of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Bologna for the course ‘Heritage, History and the Issue of Managing’. Apart from assisting the professor in managing content and grading, I also organised a lecture on heritage management in India.
Thesis supervision
2018: Bachelor’s thesis in Industrial Engineering and Management at Chalmers University of Technology on ‘Translating Multinational Policies to Local Actions: How Volvo Group IT Conducts Gender Equality Work in India’. Thesis submitted by Anton Green, Simon Högström, Moa Josephson, Linn Karlsson, Anna Viktorsson, Denis Yordanov. (Co-supervised with Malin Nordvall).
2018: Master’s thesis in Management and Economics of Innovation at Chalmers University of Technology on ‘National and Organizational Culture’s Impact on Information System Implementations in the Shipping Industry’. Thesis submitted by Linnea Hermansson.
Select conference participations and invited talks
Webinar: Invited to be one of the expert discussants for a webinar on Covid-19 and science communication organized by the network of Public Communication of Science and Technology, held on 26 May, 2020.
Paper: ‘Negotiating Digital Transformations and ‘Geographies of Cashlessness’. To be presented at 12th Annual NNC Conference Digital Asia - Cultural, Socio-Economic, and Political Transformations, 2-4 December 2019, Lund. (co-authored with Jillet Sarah Sam, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur).
Talk: Invited lecture at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India to students of Sociology of new media on ‘Mapping gender gap in Indian Wikipedia’, October 2018.
Paper: ‘The evolution of public-scientists: how Indian science museums are creating grassroots innovators’, presented at the 7th STS Italia conference, Padova, 14th to 16th June, 2018.
Talk: ‘The narrative of scientific temper and science museums in independent India: rhetoric, policies, praxis’, presented at the Medical Museion, Copenhagen, 30th November, 2017.
Paper: ‘Scientific temper or scientific heritage: some reflections on the role of history (or lack thereof) at the National Council of Science Museums, India’, Conference of International Council of Museums, Milan, 3rd to 9th July 2016.
Talk: ‘A scientifically astute society for the future: heritage perspectives in Indian science museums’, Weekly Colloquium of National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, 7th June, 2016.
Paper: ‘Unpacking the science in Indian science museums’, Conference of the Society of the Social Studies of Science’, Denver, 11th to 14th November 2015.
Scholarships, grants and awards
2019 Chalmers University Research Grant for conference abroad. Sum: 15000 Swedish Krona.
2018 STINT (Swedish) Initiation Grant to facilitate research network between Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg. Project: Sensemaking of digital money among Indian women. Co-applicant. Sum of money received: 148.000 Swedish Krona.
2018 Conference grant to attend STS Italia, Padova between the 14th and 16th of June, 2018.
2017 European Fellowship to attend International Summer School of Science Journalism in Erice, Italy from 1st to 6th July
2016 Conference grant to attend Public Communication of Science and Technology conference in Istanbul (26th to 28th April)
2015 Graduate Scholar Award to attend conference of Inclusive Museums in New Delhi, India.
2014-16 Brains-in Lodging Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies (Scuola Superiore), University of Bologna
2013-16 University of Bologna-Italian Ministry of Education Scholarship for doctoral studies at Department of Philosophy and Communication, University of Bologna
2013 University of Bologna fellow at the annual European cultural diplomacy meet at the Forum D’Avignon, France
2013 Scholarship for Internship Abroad, School of Economics, University of Bologna
2011-13 Italian Government (Ministry of External Affairs) Scholarship for study in Economics and Management
2011-12 Oxford-IFMR, Exeter College Scholarship to pursue MSc in Contemporary India at
University of Oxford (declined in favour of Italian government scholarship)
2011 Best Dissertation on Indian Writing in English, Department of English, University of Hyderabad
2008-09 University of Hyderabad, Merit Scholarship to attend MPhil studies
Other indicators of merit
Reviewer for the journals of Tecnoscienza; Telecommunications Policy, Journal of Science Communication, Public Understanding of Science
Presenter at the Science Festival, Gothenburg (April, 2019)
A short research "Mapping and Bridging the Gender Gap: An Ethnographic Study of Indian Wikipedians and Their Motivations to Contribute" that I carried out with a colleague from Wikipedia was covered in the August 2019 issue of the "Wikimedia Research Newsletter", a monthly online overview of recent academic research about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
