The OICSD is comprised of top academics and researchers working on the most pressing questions of sustainable development facing the Global South.
They are supported in this work by an International Advisory Board enriched by its members’ broad interdisciplinary experience in the fields of law, governance, engineering, medicine, science and technology. The Board exists to offer strategic advice on the Centre’s work, and ensure it remains relevant to India. It comprises of a high level group of advisors with diverse expertise at the top of their fields.
OICSD Academics and Support Staff
Radhika Khosla
Research Director, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development; Associate Professor, Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment; Senior Research FellowDr Radhika Khosla is Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, School of Geography and the Environment, and Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, Somerville College, at the University of Oxford. She works on examining the productive tensions between urban transitions, energy services consumption and climate change with a focus on developing country cities.
Radhika is Principal Investigator of the Oxford Martin School’s interdisciplinary and multi-country programme on the Future of Cooling, which examines and helps shape the unprecedented increase in cooling energy demand growth. She is also Co-Investigator of Oxford Net Zero, an interdisciplinary research programme aimed at informing effective, equitable, and ambitious climate action; and Co-Investigator of the ZERO Institute, which brings together Oxford research on zero-carbon energy systems.
Alongside she leads complementary research projects on urban transitions and energy consumption (focussing on India). She is a contributing author to the sixth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and lead author of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report (2020).
Radhika’s other current academic affiliations are at University of Pennsylvania (USA), and the Centre for Policy Research (India). She serves on the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office UK-India Advisory Board; on the Steering Committee of the Smart Surfaces Coalition; on boards of journals and book presses; and on a range of advisory roles within Oxford.
The two sets of interrelated questions underlie her research priorities. First, how does consumption of energy-related services change as cities urbanize? What are the socio-technical systems and institutional structures that shape (and can reconfigure) energy and carbon emission pathways? Second, what forms of governance and political rationalities characterize the varied urban responses to climate change in rapidly developing cities, given their (often competing) objectives to provide urban services? Her broader interdisciplinary research examines how cities in transition manage the tensions of meeting growing energy needs for development while protecting the local and global environment.
Previously, she has been a Research Affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (India), and Staff Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (USA).
Radhika holds a PhD in the Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate and master’s degrees in Physics from the University of Oxford.
Teaching
Spaces, Infrastructure and Technology for Net Zero, Sustainable Development, for the MSc in Enterprise and the Environment
Governance, Policy and Politics for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, School of Geography and the Environment
Environmental Governance and Development for the MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Governance, School of Geography and the Environment
Climate Change Negotiations: Policy Challenge for the Master’s in Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government
Global Opportunities and Threats: Oxford Program for MBA students, Saïd Business School
Climate Change School, Oxford Climate Society, University of Oxford
Khosla, R. (2021) Electrifying the National Capital Region. In Colossus: The Anatomy of Delhi, eds. Chakravorty and Sircar, Cambridge University Press.
Khosla R, Jani A, Perera R. Health risks of extreme heat BMJ 2021; 375 :n2438
Khosla, R., Agarwal, A., Sircar, N. and Chatterjee, D. (2021) The what, why, and how of changing cooling energy consumption in India’s urban households. Environmental Research Letters, 16(4). 044035.
Khosla, R., et al. (2021) Climate Action Pathway: Net Zero cooling – Action table. The Carbon Trust
Mazzone, A. and Khosla, R. (2021) Socially constructed or physiologically informed? Placing humans at the core of understanding cooling needs. Energy Research and Social Science, 77. 102088.
Miranda, N.D., Renaldi, R., Khosla, R. and McCulloch, M.D. (2021) Bibliometric analysis and landscape of actors in passive cooling research. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 149. 111406.
Renaldi, R., Miranda, N.D., Khosla, R. and McCulloch, M.D. (2021) Patent landscape of not-in-kind active cooling technologies between 1998 and 2017. Journal of Cleaner Production, 2196. 126507.
Al Saud, N., Al Shalan, M., Al Shehri, T., Bari, M., Beaugrand, M., Howarth, N., Khosla, R., Krarti, M., Lanza, A., Lebot, B., Mangotra, K., Odnoletkova, N., Patzek, T. and Saheb, Y. (2020) Enhancing Voluntary Collaboration on Cooling Through the G20. T20 Saudi Arabia 2020 Think
Bhardwaj, A. and Khosla, R. (2020) Superimposition: How Indian city bureaucracies are responding to climate change. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space: 1-32.
Capstick, S., Khosla, R. and Wang, S. (2020) Bridging the gap – the role of equitable low-carbon lifestyles. UNEP Emissions Gap Report.
Creutzig, F., Bai, X., Khosla, R., Viguie, V. and Yamagata, Y. (2020) Systematizing and upscaling urban climate change mitigation. Environmental Research Letters, 15(10). 100202.
Kamat, A.S., Khosla, R. and Narayanamurti, V. (2020) Illuminating homes with LEDs in India: Rapid market creation towards low-carbon technology transition in a developing country. Energy Research and Social Science, 66. 101488.
Khosla, R. and Dubash, N. (2020) Rethinking India’s Energy Policy: Development Challenge around Multiple Objectives. Economic and Political Weekly, 55(32-33): 38-44.
Khosla, R., et al. (2020) Climate Action Pathway: Net-Zero Cooling – Executive Summary. Cool Coalition / UNEP
Khosla, R., Kamat, A.S. and Narayanamurti, V. (2020) Successful clean energy technology transitions in emerging economies: learning from India, China, and Brazil. Progress in Energy, 2(4). 043002.
Khosla, R., Miranda, N.D., Trotter, P.A., Mazzone, A., Renaldi, R., McElroy, C., Cohen, F., Jani, A., Perera-Salazar, R. and McCulloch, M. (2020) Cooling for sustainable development. Nature Sustainability.
Ürge-Vorsatz, D., Khosla, R., Bernhardt, R., Chan, Y.C., Vérez, D., Hu, S. and Cabeza, L.F. (2020) Advances Toward a Net-Zero Global Building Sector. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 45: 227-269.
Bhardwaj, A., Joshi, M., Khosla, R. and Dubash, N.K. (2019) More priorities, more problems? Decision-making with multiple energy, development and climate objectives. Energy Research and Social Science, 49: 143-157.
Khosla, R. (2019) India and Subnational Climate Change: An Emerging Discourse. Harvard Project on Climate Agreements
Khosla, R. and Bhardwaj, A. (2019) Urban India and Climate Change. Chapter 25 in, Dubash, N. (ed.) India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development. Oxford University Press. 504 pp. ISBN: 9780199498734.
Khosla, R. and Janda, K.B. (2019) India’s building stock: towards energy and climate change solutions. Building Research and Information, 47(1): 1-7.
Khosla, R., Sircar, N. and Bhardwaj, A. (2019) Energy demand transitions and climate mitigation in low-income urban households in India. Environmental Research Letters, 14. 095008.
Sara Kalim
Fellow and Director of DevelopmentSara Kalim read Classics at Somerville from 1990-94. She then spent 14 years in the media, working as Head of Development for two major television production companies. Her work included developing access and ideas, and fundraising for documentaries and current affairs programming.
Sara has most recently worked for the University of Oxford for three years at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Department of Politics and International Relations, where she held responsibility for financial and strategic planning, and played an instrumental role in securing journalism scholarships from a variety of funding sources.
As Director of Development, Sara oversees Somerville’s fundraising strategy and development, is responsible for fundraising campaigns (including for the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust and the Oxford India Centre), and heads up the Development Team. She is also a member of the College’s Management Team.
Sara has a long-standing family connection to India, with family coming from Patna, Bihar. She also studied at Somerville making her the perfect advocate to drive the further development of the Centre. Sara’s focus is on fundraising and profile-raising working with philanthropists and corporate partners.
If you are interested in making a gift, or are thinking about leaving a legacy, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Siddharth Arora
Research Fellow; Associate, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development; Parkinson's UK Early Career FellowSiddharth completed his DPhil, focused on developing statistical methods for time series forecasting, at Somerville College.
His research interests include Biomedical Signal & Image Processing, Statistical Modelling, Forecasting, and Chaos Synchronization. His work is primarily concerned with two application areas: Healthcare, and Energy.
Currently, Siddharth is investigating remote technologies for the diagnosis and monitoring of Parkinson’s disease. He develops statistical algorithms using data for voice, gait, posture, reaction times, dexterity, and tremor, collected using smartphones in a home and community setting. These algorithms are aimed at identifying patterns in the data, which can be used to discriminate people with Parkinson’s disease from healthy controls and accurately monitor the severity symptoms of the disease over time.
Siddharth is also working on a NHS funded project aimed at predicting the A&E arrivals, admissions and discharges across hospitals in the West Midlands. The algorithms developed as part of this project will be used operationally by the NHS to optimize staffing decisions, which would help reduce patient waiting times.
“Detecting and Monitoring the Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease using Smartphones: A Pilot Study”, Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, 21, 650–653.
S. Arora, V. Venkataraman, A. Zhan, S. Donohue, K.M. Biglan, E.R. Dorsey, M.A. Little (2015)
“Forecasting Electricity Smart Meter Data Using Conditional Kernel Density Estimation”, Omega, forthcoming.
S. Arora and J.W. Taylor (2014)
“Cortical and Clonal Contribution of Tbr2 Expressing Progenitors in the Developing Mouse Brain”, Cerebral Cortex, forthcoming.
N.A. Vasistha, F. García-Moreno, S. Arora, A.F.P. Cheung, S.J. Arnold, E.J. Robertson and Z. Molnár (2014)
Synchronization of Coupled Map Lattice using Delayed Variable Feedback”, Journal of Applied Nonlinear Dynamics, 3, 245-253.
S. Arora and M.S. Santhanam (2014)
“Short-term Forecasting of Anomalous Load using Rule-based Triple Seasonal Methods”, IEEE Transactions on Power Systems, 28, 3235-3242.
S. Arora and J.W. Taylor (2013)
“Nonlinear and Nonparametric Modelling Approaches for Probabilistic Forecasting of the US Gross National Product”, Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, 17, 395-420.
S. Arora, M.A. Little and P.E. McSharry (2013)
Neeraj Shetye
Partnerships and Communications Manager, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable DevelopmentNeeraj manages OICSD’s partnerships, strategic communications, research outreach design and relationship building, and is responsible for the Centre’s operations.
He works with the Research Director on developing the Centre’s research strategy, global presence and impact.
Neeraj’s research interests are in social policy in India with a focus on its social justice approach. He works on issues of accessibility to public services in education and healthcare for marginalised sections of Indian society.
Previously, Neeraj worked as a Research Support Officer at the Oxford Internet Institute where he administered the Visiting Research Fellowship and the internal departmental ethics process. He holds an MSc in Politics of Conflict, Rights and Justice from the School of Oriental-Asian and African Studies (SOAS) University of London.
Shobhana Nagraj
Research Associate, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable DevelopmentDr Shobhana (Shobi) Nagraj is a post-doctoral Clinical Researcher in the Health Systems Collaborative group within the NDM Centre for Global Health Research, working in the fields of Health Systems research and Implementation Science, with a focus on maternal child health. She joined the OICSD as a Research Associate in December 2022.
During her time as a clinician and medical educator, Shobi has worked closely with rural communities and Community Health Care Workers in low-resource settings globally. She is passionate about delivering high-quality, universal health services to women and children, that meet the needs of the communities and end-users. Shobi’s research focuses on the use of theory in the design, development and implementation of complex interventions (including mobile technologies) to support the healthcare workforce in low-resource settings. She is interested in how complex innovations can be designed to facilitate implementation and sustainability within the health system and the communities they serve.
She is a Course Director for the Oxford University Global Surgery Course, and leads the Global Surgery day on the International Health & Tropical Medicine Masters course at the University of Oxford. Shobi has reviewed grants for the MRC, Research Council of Norway, and is part of the NIHR Global Health Community of Practice on Community Engagement & Involvement. Shobi works closely with local organisations in Oxfordshire around issues of childhood nutrition.
Her research interests include: Global surgery, global children’s health, human-centred design, implementation of complex innovations in low-resource settings, and health professionals’ education.
Anant Jani
Research Associate, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable DevelopmentAnant’s research is focused on understanding how we can improve population health through social prescriptions and by addressing social determinants of health.
Given the negative impact of severe heat on morbidity and mortality, he sees access to cooling (both passive and active) as a social determinant of health and cooling as a potential healthcare intervention. In this capacity he works with the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Cooling, which is co-lead by the Research Director of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development, Radhika Khosla.
Prior to his position at the University of Oxford, Anant worked in Europe and the Middle East to help healthcare systems within these countries to focus more on value-based healthcare. Anant has a PhD in immunology from Yale University.
Maan Barua
Associate, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development; University Lecturer in Human Geography, Cambridge UniversityMaan is a University Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Cambridge, and a research affiliate of the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development.
Maan completed his DPhil in human geography at the School of Geography and the Environment in 2013 (Clarendon and Senior Hulme Scholar, Brasenose College). He has an undergraduate degree in the biological sciences from India (First class; 1st; honours) and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management (Distinction), also from Oxford.
Maan’s research is situated within environmental and cultural geography, the central axis of which focuses on the spatialities, politics and governance of the living and material world. It conceptually develops two of geography’s vibrant sub-fields – more-than-human geography and political ecology – with which he has engaged through his doctoral and postdoctoral research. Maan teaches environmental and human geography at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Hid work engages political ecology and posthumanist thought to develop new understandings of the geographies of nature. Of particular interest are nonhuman ecologies and processes pertaining to production, landscape and knowledge. Maan’s ongoing and past work interrogates these ecologies through a number of empirical foci, including urban ecologies, nonhuman labour and commodity production, and historical and contemporary more-than-human geographies. A theme cutting through these empirics is the traffic between nature and capital, and more broadly, between ecology and economy.
Maan lectures on the ‘Environmental Geography’ foundation course for undergraduates, besides conducting tutorials on various human geography topics for different colleges. At postgraduate level, he co-teaches a module on ‘Conservation and Society’ on the MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation and Management, and convenes an option ‘Urban Political Ecology’ for masters students across the School of Geography and the Environment.
Barua, M. and Jellis, T. (2018) Vocabularies for Urban Futures: Critical Reflections..
Barua, M. (2017) Nonhuman labour, encounter value, spectacular accumulation: the geographies of a lively commodity. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 42(2): 274-288.
Lorimer, J., Hodgetts, T. and Barua, M. (2017) Animals’ atmospheres. Progress in Human Geography.
Barua, M. (2016) Lively commodities and encounter value. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 34(4): 725-744.
Zablocki, J., Arora, S. and Barua, M. (2016) Factors affecting media coverage of species rediscoveries. Conservation Biology, 30(4): 914-917.
Barua, M. (2015) Encounter: Living Lexicon for the Environmental Humanities. Environmental Humanities, 7: 265-270.
Jadhav, S., Jain, S., Kannuri, N., Bayetti, C. and Barua, M. (2015) Ecologies of Suffering: Mental Health in India. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(20): 12-15.
Vikranth Harthikote Nagaraja
Associate, Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development; University Fellow, School of Health and Society, Salford UniversityVikranth completed his DPhil in Biomedical Engineering at St Hilda’s College; his thesis focused on better characterising compensatory movements adopted during upper-limb prosthesis usage, which have been linked to poor outcomes. Following a postdoctoral stint at Oxford, he joined as a University Fellow with the Centre for Human Movement and Rehabilitation at Salford University in August 2023. During his Fellowship, Vikranth aims to work at the intersection of rehabilitation technologies and global health.
Vikranth’s research primarily focuses on developing affordable/personalised prosthetic arms for low-resource settings and biomechanical modelling. His research interests include Human Movement Analysis, Upper Extremity Biomechanics, Prosthetic limbs, Musculoskeletal Modelling, Telehealth, Medical Device Design, and Affordable Healthcare.
He is also working on collaborative projects tackling emerging topics – (i) AI/Machine Learning applications in motion analysis and musculoskeletal modelling for real-world biomechanical assessments; (ii) the potential role of telehealth and virtual care as sustainable development solutions in achieving Universal Health Coverage in India; and (iii) structured need-led design methodology for developing prosthetic devices.
- Nagaraja, V.H., Ghosh Dastidar, B., Suri, S., and Jani, A., 2022. Perspectives and use of telemedicine by doctors in India: A cross-sectional study. medRxiv.
- Ghosh Dastidar, B., Suri, S., Nagaraja, V.H., and Jani, A., 2022. A virtual bridge to Universal Healthcare in India. Communications Medicine. 2, 145.
- Nagaraja, V.H., Ghosh Moulic, S., D’souza J.V., Limesh, M., Walters, P., and Bergmann J.H., 2022. A novel respiratory control and actuation system for upper-limb prosthesis users: Clinical evaluation study. TechArxiv. 1–18.
- Nagaraja, V.H., Bergmann, J.H., Andersen, M.S., and Thompson, M.S., 2022. Comparison of a Scaled Cadaver-based Musculoskeletal Model with a Clinical Upper Extremity Model. ASME Journal of Biomechanical Engineering. 1–14.
- Dasgupta, A., Sharma, R., Mishra, C., and Nagaraja, V.H., 2022. Machine Learning for Optical Motion Capture-driven Musculoskeletal Modeling from Inertial Motion Capture Data. arXiv.
- Sharma, R., Dasgupta, A., Cheng, R., Mishra, C., and Nagaraja, V.H., 2022. Machine Learning for Musculoskeletal Modeling of Upper Extremity. IEEE Sensors Journal. 22(9), pp.18684–18697.
- Nagaraja, V.H., da Ponte Lopes, J., and Bergmann, J.H., 2022. Reimagining Prosthetic Control: A Novel Body-Powered Prosthetic System for Simultaneous Control and Actuation. Prosthesis, 4(3), pp.394–413.
- Russell, J., Bergmann, J.H., and Nagaraja, V.H., 2022. Towards Dynamic Multi-Modal Intent Sensing Using Probabilistic Sensor Networks. Sensors, 22(7), p.2603.
- Nagaraja, V.H., Cheng, R., Slater, D.H., Thompson, M.S., and Bergmann, J.H., 2022. Upper limb prosthetic maintenance data–A retrospective analysis study. JPO: Journal of Prosthetics and Orthotics. 34(4):223–232
- Nagaraja, V.H., Bergmann, J.H., Sen, D. and Thompson, M.S., 2016. Examining the needs of affordable upper limb prosthetic users in India: A questionnaire-based survey. Technology and Disability, 28(3), pp.101-110.