Dr. Ruchika Rai is an Assistant Professor and Senior Fellow who co-leads the Himalayan Institute of UPES, Dehradun. She earned her PhD in sociology (2025) and MPhil (2017) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, following MA in sociology from IGNOU and BA (Hons) English literature from University of Delhi.
A seasoned folk theatre and film artist with twenty years of experience, Dr. Rai focuses her research on Himalayan performative traditions, specifically Kumaoni Ramlila and Jagar, exploring questions of language, identity, and ritual economy. She is currently leading a research project funded by Eicher Foundation (India) and co-owned by MIT (MA), wherein she is exploring how traditional dilapidated Himalayan buildings can be renovated with green building material such as hempcrete.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Rai is investigating the digital mediation of sacred Himalayan traditions within US institutional contexts. Her project, Technologies of Transmission, utilizes multi-modal ethnography to examine how ritual artifacts and embodied practices are archived and reimagined through immersive technologies such as virtual reality and digital humanities platforms. Her research seeks to analyze authenticity and cultural ownership to develop ethical archiving toolkits to preserve intangible cultural heritage transnationally.