Feminist and LGBTQ+ Studies

Biography

Bidyut Mohanty, Ph. D (Delhi), is Head, Women’s Studies Department at the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) in New Delhi. She has been a Visiting Professor in the Global and International Studies program at UC Santa Barbara and is a fellow of the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies at UCSB. She is the coordinator of ISS and UNDP project on Capacity Building of Elected Women Leaders in Local Government in India and also of the project sponsored by the National Commission on Protection of Child Rights and has coordinated several projects on HIV and AIDS and the role of Panchayats, trafficking and local government’s new role, as well as the project "Total Sanitation Scenario: a Reality Check." These projects were sponsored by UNIFEM (UNWOMEN), UN AIDS and FINISH (through the ISS), respectively. As series coordinator of the program of the National Women’s Political Empowerment Day Celebrations, Dr. Mohanty is also a specialist on famine, agrarian history, and decentralization studies with a focus on gender, culture and development. She combines grassroots activism with participatory research.