January 26, 2023 – We are pleased to announce the appointment of Professor Paula Banerjee as the IDRC Endowed Research Chair on Gender and Forced Displacement at the Asian Institute of Technology’s Gender and Development Studies (GDS) Program in the School of Environment, Resource, and Development.
Professor Banerjee, who has a long research experience and publication record on forced migration and gender in both South And Southeast Asia, will start her role officially as the new IDRC Chair in April 2023. She will also be the founding Director of the new Center on Gender and Forced Displacement hosted by GDS, AIT.
Professor Banerjee obtained a Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Cincinnati, USA, where she was the recipient of the Advanced Taft fellowship. She is a Professor in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Calcutta. She was the Vice Chancellor at Sanskrit College and University, Kolkata. She handled a budget of about 4 million USD that she helped fundraise, began seven new postgraduate departments, and digitalized probably the richest manuscript collection in the country. She was also the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Calcutta and was responsible for approximately 7000 graduate students. She supervised 32 departments and ten research centers. She also managed over 100 colleges affiliated with Calcutta University and decided on the accreditation of their Master of Arts programs. Furthermore, Prof. Banerjee also got 42 government-accredited new posts. From a student base of only 92, when she took charge of the university, she increased it to over 600 in two years.
A world-class leader in gender and forced displacement, Professor Banerjee has served as a two-term president of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM). She has also served as the Director of the Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, the Institute of Foreign Policy Studies, and the Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies. She is well-published, including 15 books, over 44 articles, book chapters, and many more conference papers and reports. She is the editor of Refugee Watch and on the board of several other journals.
We are extremely pleased that Professor Banerjee brings her renowned expertise to AIT, and to GDS more specifically, and that she will establish the Center on Gender and Forced Displacement with the aim of being a top research center on gender and forced migration in the region and globally.
We wish Professor Paula Banerjee every success in this new role.
