Meet the passionate minds driving our research and discover our mission to reshape urban futures through interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.
The Urban Research Lab (URL) at IIIT-Delhi was established in 2020, during a time when the pandemic brought the complexities of urban life more visible than ever. What started as an initiative by faculty and students has grown into a collaborative space for critically exploring and reimagining the urban questions through research, dialogue, and interdisciplinary engagement.
The Lab brings together scholars, practitioners, and students interested in understanding how cities are shaped socially, technologically, and ecologically. Our work spans themes like digital urbanism, sustainability, urban inequality, and political ecology. Through seminars, book talks, panel discussions, and events, URL sparks lively conversations that bring theory and practice into dialogue, connect diverse disciplines, and link the classroom directly with the city's realities. At its core, the Urban Research Lab is an inspiring space to think critically, share knowledge, and imagine innovative solutions about cities, people, spaces, and policies. It continues to grow as a collaborative community, welcoming everyone who is curious about understanding and shaping the urban world around us.
Deepak Prince is an anthropologist with an interest in the sociality of technology (specifically, screen-based computational technologies) and in practices of imagination.
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Gayatri Nair at IIIT Delhi investigates urban labor, caste, gender, and tech. Published in key journals, she authored 'Set Adrift' on Mumbai's politics.
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Paro, from IIT Delhi, studies Gender and Tech, focusing on reproductive technologies and the FemTech scene in India, supported by major grants.
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Dr. Praveen Priyadarshi, LSE alumnus, delves into urban policy and its political impact in India and beyond. He's contributed to EPW and co-edited a book on India.
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Dr. Smriti Singh, JNU graduate, researches Urban Sociology, social media, privacy, and surveillance, fostering scholarly dialogue often over tea or coffee.
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Soibam Haripriya completed her Ph.D from the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics. She was a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow at the South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin (2022-2023).
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I am a PhD scholar at IIIT-Delhi, where I explore questions at the intersection of heritage, urban politics, governance, and the everyday dynamics of urbanization and mobility. At Urban Research Lab, I look forward to contributing to interdisciplinary initiatives that examine how cities are shaped, contested, and experienced. My academic background includes a Master’s in Sociology from the Delhi School of Economics, and my research interests lie in heritage spaces, urban politics and governance, and urbanization and mobility.
Sampurna Das is a Teaching Fellow of Sociology at IIIT-Delhi.. Her research focuses on water governance, agrarian relations, and environmental justice in South Asia. She has published in journals like Journal of Peace and Conflict, Journal of Ethnic and Minority Studies, and worked with Heinrich Böll Stiftung and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation on feminist and labour rights. A founding member of Just Water Futures and Contributing Editor at Society for Cultural Anthropology, she is completing her PhD in Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Her ethnographic thesis explores the social life of uncertainty in the river islands (chars) of Assam, northeastern India.