Biography

As an educator and researcher, I have spent thousands of hours in classrooms across India, exploring why some research translates to meaningful change in schools and why some don’t. My doctoral study seeks to envision a rigorous and humane research architecture in education that engages with epistemological diversity and aims to transform schools from within. Specifically, I will study how knowledge that emerges from critical and self-reflexive practitioner inquiry can enter into a horizontal dialogue with dominant knowledge paradigms to enrich both research and practice in emancipatory ways. Born in the north-eastern state of Assam, I bring to my doctoral studies a decade-long experience of running a free school for a disadvantaged community in rural India. Through Flourishing Minds Foundation, a non-profit organisation I founded in 2011, I have also engaged extensively with the larger educational ecosystem - schools, government bodies, multinational agencies and NGOs - to integrate neuropsychological research with lived experience to foster learning and well-being in schools. In the future, I intend to set up a research and advocacy institute in India that facilitates interdisciplinary work between practitioners and researchers in education.