Oxford-Indira Gandhi scholar Medha Mukherjee has been awarded the prestigious Frederick Soddy Postgraduate Award towards her DPhil research at the School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford. She is the first Indian woman to win this award.
Worth £6000, the Frederick Soddy prize is the highest award given to any research student by the Royal Geographical Society. Each year, up to three graduate students are awarded support for their research on the social, economic and cultural life of a region, in any part of the world.
Medha will use the award towards her DPhil work on providing safe drinking water for all in mountain rural communities in India, supervised by Professor Rob Hope.
“Access to safe drinking water, or lack thereof, has historically been an emblem of one’s identity in India, especially caste, class, culture, religion, political affiliation and economic status,” reads Medha’s research abstract. “Such intersectional markers of identity shape, and are shaped by, inequalities. Inequalities further intersect and overlap, producing aggravated effects as intersectional inequalities. Analysing intersectional inequalities, this research investigates how equitable access can be achieved, with reliable rural water services maintained across diverse and difficult landscapes of the Uttarakhand Himalaya and the Maharashtra Sahyadri.”
Medha also has an upcoming paper titled ‘Power, Paralysis and Action: Understanding Flood Risk Management in Kerala, India’ in peer-reviewed journal, Environmental Hazards. Read more about Medha’s work here.
