Sumangala Damodaran is a professor of development studies, economics, and popular music studies, with an academic career spanning more than three decades. She has taught for a long time in Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and Ambedkar University Delhi. She is now at the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi. She is also a visiting professor at Ashoka University, Haryana.
Prof. Damodaran’s areas of work include industrial organization, labour and the informal sector, global value chains, and gender. She has also researched extensively on the relationship between society and music and produced several music albums. As an academician and performing musician, she has been the recipient of many prestigious grants from India and abroad. She has collaborated with scholars and performers from different countries on academic research and poetry-music performances. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
In her six months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, Prof. Damodaran will be engaged in teaching two undergraduate courses in the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies Department, working with colleagues in developing course modules, giving lecture-demonstrations around her work in music, and engaging with community organizations such as Ragamala, a music organization in Seattle, for conducting poetry, music and storytelling sessions.