I am a broadly trained human-environment geographer with specializations in feminist, health, and agro-food geographies. I have over 7 years of research experience across northern, eastern, and central India investigating agriculture, health, gender, and food and nutrition security. ​

My research examines the complex interplay among processes of human health and wellbeing, ecological change, and everyday social relations, particularly in relation to food and agriculture. In considering human-environment-health relationships, I have a particular interest in using qualitative, ethnographic, and feminist methods to understand how health and social inequities are produced, reproduced, and experienced by different stakeholders. To these ends my research parses apart the political-economic and socio-cultural logics that underwrite certain development and global health policies. I then qualitatively trace these policies across multiple sites to see how they are understood, enacted, and come to matter in the everyday lives of all sorts of human and nonhuman bodies.

My most recent project, entitled, Nutrition-Sensitive Agriculture, Global Nutrition Policy, and the Gendered and Affective Politics of Health in India, examines the changing political context of global health and nutrition policy in the context of agrarian India. Using an ethnographic approach, I examine how a large non-governmental organization (NGO) in India has begun to use women’s self-help groups (SHGs) as village level delivery platforms for health outreach programs. The NGO has further retrofitted its agriculture development model from one focused on productivity and income to one that is “nutrition-sensitive.” This is a re-imagination of agriculture development that focuses on farmers’ health and wellbeing by combining climate-smart agronomic practices, a diversification of crops, and a focus on female empowerment.

I also have long-standing interest in the politics of food and nutrition policy in the context of India, especially in an era of revamped enthusiasm around nutrition within global health and development forums. You can find a recent publication on this topic in the journal Geoforum.

In addition to my India work, I have done research in collaboration with BARA at University of Arizona that used community-based participatory methods with the Southern Arizona Community Food Bank (CFB) to better understand food insecurity experiences across Southern Arizona.

Office hours

• Tuesdays from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Research interests

• Political ecology
• Global health
• Gender issues in development
• Agriculture and food systems
• Politics of food and nutrition policy
• Feminist methods
• Disability studies
• Geographies of health and wellbeing
• Regional focus on South Asia

Selected publications