I am a Lecturer in Social Work at Royal Holloway, University of London, since January 2024.

Prior to joining Royal Holloway, I was the Research Lead for a leading children’s charity, working for severely traumatised children in England. I also served as a researcher at the University of Sussex, working on a British Academy-funded research project focused on protecting the identity needs of minoritised ethnic children moving into transracial adoptive families.

My research lies in the intersection of social work, sociology, and international development, particularly in the areas of children’s rights, family practices, safeguarding services, and policies related to child protection and adoption in the UK and India. I’m also interested in methodology, especially qualitative, co-creation and narrative approaches with people who have had lived experiences within my research focus.

In terms of teaching, I have experience delivering optional modules in Childhood and Youth Studies, Social Work, and core modules in Advanced Professional Practice to both undergraduate and postgraduate students. In the upcoming academic year 2024-25, I will primarily teach the following modules: SW1001 Law in its Social Context; SW1002 Introduction to Social Care; SW3004 Critical Perspectives in Children, Families, and Communities; and SW5023 Critical Social Work.

I completed my PhD (passed without any corrections), funded by Chancellor’s International Research Scholarship, from the University of Sussex in September 2021.  My interdisciplinary PhD thesis is an empirical work illuminates everyday practices of adoptive family lives in contemporary India, drawing on the lived experiences of young adult adopted people, adoptive parents and social work practitioners. It is the first study to provide insight into the secularisation process of child welfare law from a social work perspective, and how it intersects with the ways in which adoptive family lives are practiced in the changing socio-legal environment of India. The first set of findings from my PhD thesis has bee published as an article titled A qualitative exploration of adoptive family practices in contemporary India: the voices of adoptees of closed adoptions  in Families, Relationships and Societies, An international journal of research and debate.

Before pursuing PhD, I worked as a development practitioner (2004-2014), with a focus on children’s rights, children in institutional care, education, child protection policy and services with a range of institutions including government, national and international organisations in India. I have also been involved with various child rights organisations in Nepal, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda to facilitate in setting up and strengthening contexualised safeguarding systems, practices, and reframing policies.

I am an associate fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a recipient of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship from the UK Government. I am also an honorary research fellow at the University of Sussex.

Child Protection; adoption; children in institutional care; child labour, out-of-school children, early/child marrigae; child welfare policy; social work practice; family practices in South Asian diaspora; class, caste, and gender based discrimination; community based protection mechansims;  qualitative research method; co-creation process; narrative approaches

SW1001 Law in its Social Context;

SW1002 Introduction to Social Care;

SW3004 Critical Perspectives in Children, Families, and Communities; 

SW5023 Critical Social Work