Scholarships

I conduct anthropological fieldwork in India–primarily Gujarat. I study human evolution in India from 250,000 years ago to the present. I also study biological variation among adivasis. There is currently only one fossil human from India, from the Narmada valley in MP.  My goal is to locate more fossils and make the picture of human evolution in India more clear.
I do programs with the Anthropological Survey of India to train students, and hope to create a formal paleoanthropology degree program in India (and find fossils!), so India can be included in global models of human evolution.

Articles on colonial and postcolonial writings; Reading the Splendid Body:  Gender and Consumerism in Eighteenth-Century Writing on India (1998); Slavery, Colonialism and Connoisseurship:  Gender and Eighteenth-Century Literary Transnationalism_ (2006); Hindi Cinema: Repeating the Subject (forthcoming)
Teaches Cinema South Asia:  Modernity to Postmodernity (ENGL 658);  Women of South Asia (ENGL/WGST 489/481); Indian Cinema (ENGL/FILM 351)
Director and Convenor of the South Asia Working Group on Texas A&M campus, professional and scholarly networks established with South Asia Institute at UT-Austin and with Chao Institute at Rice University.

My research examines the social and economic values of music in contemporary India.  In particular, I focus upon the Indian music industry after liberalization from the perspective of local markets and retail stores, the emerging sites of music distribution as value added services, and the framing of intellectual property discourses.  I also research Hindi film songs, the production practices of music directors and arrangers, the meanings songs generate within the narrative contexts of films, and the social lives of songs outside of films.
I teach MUSC 200: Popular Musics of India which introduces students to Indian film songs and other popular music in their musical, economic, historical, and cultural contexts.

Research on conflict and development in India.
Teaches Bush 689: Political Economy of India’s Government [Study abroad for 3 weeks in India — every 2 years]

Teaches IBUS 489-501 India Business Environment (Spring 2012 registration and includes a two-week study abroad component January 3-16, 2012 in India: Bangalore, Mysore, and Delhi/Agra).  Program is full w/20 business students already enrolled.

Running an IIT Kanpur-TAMU exchange program in which three undergraduate students from IIT-K came to TAMU for summer research internship. Conversely, four TAMU students went to IIT-K for a similar internship

Research on financial asset pricing and corporate governance in emerging markets
Honorary Visiting Professor, IIT-Delhi

Research on dark matter research program based in India for approx. $100 million

Community-based diabetes prevention and management education in rural India
SEVAK project: Sanitation and health education in village communities
Collaborated with Gandhigram Rural Institute and All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi
Past President of South Asian Public Health Association

Research on drinking water and sanitation, gender and development in rural India
Teaches Geog 327 (Regional Geography of South Asia)
Received CAREER Award of $436000 for rural sanitation study in India

Coordinated to develop an MOU between University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad (UASD) and TAMU since 2002. Several students and research scientists from UASD visited to TAMU
Coordinated to develop an MOU with University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot and TAMU in 2009
Initiated discussion on starting “Center of Excellence of Foods for Health” in India with partnership with VFIC, TAMU.

Interests: Indian popular culture, race and gender portrayals, media campaigns, psychological effects of media
Projects:  Stereotypes of Indians in films and television in the U.S., effects of such portrayals on Indians/Indian-Americans, role of media celebrities in shaping beauty ideals in India, eve-teasing as sexual violence in popular Hindi films, and gendered analysis of matrimonial ads
Received Infinity Foundation grant for studying portrayals of India in U.S. popular films

Participating in Indian ITRA (Information Technology Research Academy) strategy formulation

Research collaboration with IIT Madras, General Motors India Science Lab and National Aeronautics Labs (NAL)  on the development of “smart”  orthotics and other smart devices for assisting humans.
Teaches Smart Materials and Systems (offered as a PG course in IIT-Madras and as a summer Quality Enhancement Program Activity for instructors in other institutions in Tamil Nadu) 
Developing design activities for students during winter break that is offered to UG students both in IIT and other engineering colleges around Tamil Nadu.

Research on innovations in and innovations for emerging markets

Researches breast cancer in India as it relates to its recent rise in incidence and aggressiveness