My research and teaching concern the interplay between disasters, (human) development and democratic politics, with a particular focus on citizen participation and accountability in disaster risk reduction and response. In my work, I draw on interdisciplinary scholarly debates spanning sociology and anthropology of disasters, participatory and social accountability politics, governance of disasters, and human development studies. I am currently working on collaborative research that looks at the role of youth-led activism in constructing alternative narratives of care, accountability, and justice for labour migrants impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in Nepal. I am also interested in methodological, political and ethical dimensions of 'doing research' in vulnerable contexts. Increasingly, my research has also focused on the governance of disaster-resilient infrastructures in the south Asian and Himalayan region that is facing the disproportionate burden of the climate crisis. My PhD research, completed in 2019 from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), used ethnographic and interview data to examine the politics of citizen participation and accountability following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes. My previous research has looked at the processes and impacts of community mobilisation in preventing HIV infection among female sex workers in southern India. I have worked in the academic and development sectors in Nepal, US and UK,  which continue to shape my research, teaching and supervisory engagements. 

PhD, Social Research Methods, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK

MA, International Development and Social Change, Clark University, USA

MBA, Kathmandu University School of Management, Nepal

B Com (Honours), University of Delhi, India

Disaters and Development; Citizen Participation and Accountability; Research Methodologies; Disaster Ethics; Ethnography of Disasters.

Ethnography of disasters and development

Participatory and action research

Ethics of disaster research

HCRI20012 Disasters and Development

HCRI63321 Citizen Participation, Accountability and Advocacy in Disasters

HCRI79000 Disaster Preparedness

HCRI60170 Research, Evaluation and Methods