Below are faculty members associated with the Center. Visiting Faculty, Library Associates and Center Associates are also listed here. Emeritus Faculty are listed on a separate page. While the information we have available is the most current, it is subject to change.

Faculty Associates

Sunil Agnani, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
Ph.D., Columbia University, 2004
Eighteenth-Century Moral and Political Prose, European Enlightenment, Contemporary Postcolonial Literature, Literary Theory, Literature of Empire & Decolonization
Contact: agnani@umich.edu or 734.764.3306

S. Ekthyar Ali, Lecturer I in Hindi/Urdu language
Ph.D., Aligarh Muslim University
Contact: ekhteyar@umich.edu

Arun Agrawal, Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Ph.D., Duke University, 1992
Politics of natural resources, development and agrarian societies; imperialism, conservation and development; common property resources; and analytic comparative politics
Contact: arunagra@umich.edu or 734.764.6453

Poonam Arora, Associate Professor, Dearborn CASL-Humanities; Assistant Professor of Film and Video at Dearborn Campus, University of Michigan
Ph.D., SUNY, 1991
Postcolonial discourse, Indian cinema, narrative theory, and feminist film theory
Contact: parora@umich.edu or 313.593.5209

Raj Arunachalam, Assistant Professor of Economics
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2007
Development Economics and Applied Microeconomics
Contact: arunacha@umich.edu

William G. Axinn, Professor of Sociology
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1990
Demography, family, life-course, research methods, and South Asian studies
Contact: baxinn@umich.edu or 734.763.1500

Sussan Babaie, Assistant Professor of Art History
Ph.D., Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
History of Islamicate art and architecture, visual culture of the early modern Persianate world (Iran, India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and Turkey) and especially of Safavid (16th-17th c) Iran.
Contact: sbabaie@umich.edu or 734.764.5400

Juan R. I. Cole, Professor of History
Ph.D., University of California, Los Angeles, 1984
Mughal Empire, South Asia Islam, Pakistan
Contact: jrcole@umich.edu or 734.763.1599

Manishita Dass, Assistant Professor of South Asian Film
Ph.D., Stanford University
Comparative film studies, postcolonial theory, and modern South Asian cultural history
Contact: mdass@umich.edu or 734.647.0147 

Madhav M. Deshpande, Professor of Sanskrit and Professor of Linguistics
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1972
Sociolinguistics of Sanskrit and Prakrit languages, ancient Indian grammatical traditions, Hinduism and Buddhism
Contact: mmdesh@umich.edu or 734.647.2159

Thomas E. Fricke, Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1984
Social anthropology, cultural ecology, demographic anthropology, demographic transitions, marriage, family and social change, kinship, field methods, quantitative analysis in social anthropology, Nepal, South Asia
Contact: tomf@umich.edu or 734.763.1500

Pinderjeet Kaur Gill, Lecturer I of Punjabi and Hindi Language
Ph.D. Guru Nanak Dev University , Amritsar , India , 1997
Comparative study of folk beliefs, folk songs of women in Punjab
Contact: pjgill@umich.edu or 734.763.5306

William Glover, Associate Professor of Architecture, Director CSAS
Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1999
Colonial and postcolonial architecture and urbanism, nineteenth and twentieth century urban South Asia, space, social theory, and question of modernity
Contact: wglover@umich.edu or 734.936.0203

Luis O. Gómez, Charles O. Hucker Professor of Buddhist Studies and Adjunct Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., Yale University, Buddhist Studies, 1967
Ph.D., University of Michigan, Psychology, 1998
Religion; history of religions; comparative religion; Sanskrit literature; Buddhism, especially late Indian Buddhism
Contact: lgomez@umich.edu or 734.763.7888

Daniel Herwitz, Director and Professor of Humanities, Institute for the Humanities
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1984
Aesthetics of modern and contemporary film, media, architecture, plastic art, literature, music; liberalism, the theory of justice and human rights, fiction
Contact: herwitz@umich.edu or 734.936.3520

Matthew Hull, Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 2003
Contact: hullm@umich.edu or 734.763.5382

Prashant Kale, Assistant Professor of Corporate Strategy and International Business
Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
Corporate strategy, alliances and joint ventures, mergers and acquistions, strategy
Contact: kale@umich.edu or 734.764.2305

Vikramaditya S. Khanna, Professor of Law
Corporations, Securities Fraud & Regulation, Corporate Criminal and Civil Liability, Corporate Governance in Emerging Markets, Law in India, Managerial Criminal and Civil Liability, The Impact of Sarbanes-Oxley on Doing Business, Law & Economics (Economic Analysis of Law), Torts
Contact: vskhanna@umich.edu or 734.615.6959

Kenneth W. Kollman, Professor of Political Science
Ph.D. Political Science, Northwestern University, 1993
American politics, comparative politics, formal political theory, political parties and elections, interest groups, game theory, complexity
Contact: kkollman@umich.edu or 734.764.6312

Karunakaran Krishnamoorthy, Lecturer in Tamil
Ph.D., Tamil Linguistics, 1969
South Asian Studies: Tamil languages and linguistics, Dravidian languages and linguistics, Tamil: philosophy, Saiva religion, sociolinguistics, lexicography, teaching Tamil as a second foreign language, stylistics; literature: Tamil, modern literature, stylistics and comparative literature study
Contact: karuna@umich.edu or 734.764.0214

Jayati Lal, Assistant Professor of Sociology & Women's studies, Associate Director CSAS
Ph.D., Cornell University, 1998
Feminist research methodologies and epistemologies; class and gender transformations among Indian women factory workers in Delhi's garment and television industries; gendered meanings of labor, class, and work; gender and development/globalization, political economy of work and development
Contact: jlal@umich.edu or 734.763.2047

Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies
Ph.D., University of Virginia, 1982
Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan history, Tibetan language
Contact: dlopez@umich.edu or 734.764.8286

Ramaswami Mahalingam, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh 1998
Cultural psychology, culture and cognition
Contact: ramawasi@umich.edu or 734.763.0049

Arvind-Pal Mandair, Assistant Professor of Sikh Studies, S.B.S.C. Professorship in Sikh Studies
Ph.D., University of Warwick, 1998
Current research interests focus on exploring the intersections between religion and comparative cultural theory and rethinking the relationship between mysticism and politics in Indic religions.
Contact:  amandair@umich.edu or 734.763.6307

Christi Merrill, Assistant Professor of Asian Languages & Cultures and Comparative Literature
M.F.A., Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1999
Theory and practice of translation (Hindi, French, Rajasthani), postcoloniality, oral to written literature, literary humor, narratives of displacement
Contact: merrillc@umich.edu or 734.647.2096

Barbara Metcalf, Alice Freeman Palmer Professor of History
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1974
History of the Indian subcontinent, especially the colonial period; history of the Muslim population of India and Pakistan
Contact: metcalf@umich.edu or 734.647.5414

Farina Mir, Assistant Professor of History
Ph.D., Columbia University, 2002
Colonial and postcolonial South Asia; linguistic, cultural and religious nationalisms; Islam in South Asia; cultural history of the British Empire; history of literature and print
Contact: fmir@umich.edu or 734.647.5416

Srilata Raman, Assistant Professor of Hindu Studies in Asian Languages and Cultures
Ph.D., University of Oxford
Classical bhakti movements and modern Hindu reform, formation of South Indian religious traditions both in the pre-colonial period and in modernity
Contact:  sriraman@umich.edu or 734.615.8538

Stephen Rush, Professor of Dance & Music Technology
Ph.D., Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, 1985 (ON LEAVE WINTER '08)
Improvisation, music technology, interdisciplinary compositional techniques
Contact: srush@umich.edu or 734.647.2286

Tahsin Siddiqi, Lecturer in Hindi
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1994
Sociolinguistics; code-mixing in Indic dialects, including Hindi and Urdu; women's speech in Urdu; modern Hindi/Urdu fiction
Contact: tsiddiqi@umich.edu or 734.936.8806

Ruth S. Simmons, Professor of Health Behavior and Health Education
Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1971
Organization of family planning and related reproductive health services with special emphasis on interface between users and programs and quality of care
Contact: rsimmons@umich.edu or 734.936.0926

Carla Sinopoli, Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Asian Archaeology, Museum of Anthropology
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1986
Archaeology of South Asia, particularly South India (Iron Age, Early Historic, and Vijayanagara),  material culture, political economy, states and empires
Contact: sinopoli@umich.edu or 734.764.0484

Jagadeesh M. Sivadasan, Assistant Professor, Business School
PhD University of Chicago, 2004
Industrial Organization; Regulation; Productivity Growth; International Economics
Contact: jagadees@umich.edu or tel: 734 763 2373

Anna Sloan, Assistant Professor of History of Art and Asian Languages and Cultures
Contact: annasl@umich.edu

Rachel Campbell Snow, Associate Professor, School of Public Health; Research Associate Professor, Population Studies Center; Associate Director, International Institute
ScD Harvard University, 1988
Fundamentals of Reproductive Health; The Challenge of HIV/AIDS: Strengthening Health Systems in Resource-Poor Settings; Population Change: Gender, Family & Fertility in Africa and Asia
Contact: rcsnow@umich.edu or 734 763 7379

Gareth Sparham, Lecturer in Tibetan
Contact: gsparham@umich.edu or 734.647.8657

Robert M. Stern, Professor of Economics and Public Policy (Emeritus)
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1958
Computer modeling of international trade and trade policies, both globally and regionally, including India and Asia
Contact: rmstern@umich.edu or 734.764.2373

Vijay Thakur, Lecturer I Hindi Language
thakur@umich.edu

Thomas R. Trautmann, Professor of History and Anthropology
Ph.D., University of London, 1968
Ancient Indian history; kinship and family in India; history of anthropology
Contact: ttraut@umich.edu or 734.746.3520

Richard P. Tucker, Adjunct Professor of Natural Resources
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1966
Modern history of South Asia, environmental history of South and Southeast Asia, global environmental trends
Contact: rptucker@umich.edu

Ashutosh Varshney, Professor of Political Science
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1990
Ethnicity and nationalism; political economy of development; and South Asian politics and political economy
Contact: varshney@umich.edu or 734.615.9103

Thomas Weisskopf, Professor of Economics
PhD., Massachussets Institute of Technology, 1966
Political economy, comparative economic systems and institutions, economic policy issues, economic development and political change
Contact: tomw@umich.edu or 734.763.0176

Jennifer Wenzel, Assistant Professor, Department of English Language and Literature
PhD University of Texas at Austin, 1998
African and South Asian Literatures in English; Literatures of Third World Liberation; Postcolonial Theory; British Literature of Empire
Contact: jawenzel@umich.edu

Salima Zaman, Lecturer in Bengali
Contact: szaman@umich.edu or 734.763.7889

Visiting Faculty

Kate Linebaugh, Knight-Wallace Journalism Fellow (2007-08)
Project title: Asia’s Wealth Gap: Capital, Consumption and Rising Inequality
Contact: ayamkate@mac.com

R.K. Srinivasan, Center for World Performance Studies Artist-in-Residence  (Aug 31 – Oct 31, 2007)
Vansi (Flute) Hindustani & Carnatic Music
Contact: rkschikari2003@yahoo.com

Library Associates

Jeffrey Martin, South Asian Bibliographer and Division Head
M.L.S., Syracuse University
Hindi, Anthropological work in Orissa, India
Contact: jeffmart@umich.edu or 734.936.2344

Center Associates

Peter Bertocci, Research Scholar
Robert Brubaker, Research Scholar
Michael Fisher, Research Scholar
Lars Fogelin, Research Scholar
Rich Freeman, Research Scholar
Stewart Gordon, Research Scholar
Thomas Metcalf, Research Scholar
Vibha Pingle, Research Scholar
Paula Richman, Research Scholar
Lee Schlesinger, Research Scholar