Email id : ss3079 at columbia dot edu
Prof. Smita Srinivas is an advisor for the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bangalore – India’s first prospective National Innovation University addressing the challenges of urbanisation through an integrated programme of education, research, consulting and advisory services.
Education:
- Ph.D.in Economic Development and Technology Planning, MIT
- Pre and Post-doctoral fellowships, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
- Bachelor’s degree in physics, maths, and economics
Prof. Smita Srinivas is Assistant Professor in the Urban Planning program and Director of the Technological Change Lab (TCLab) at Columbia University in New York City. She is trained in economic development planning and economics and focuses on political economy, technological change, and regulatory institutions.
Prof. Srinivas has well over a decade of planning and policy analysis experience and has been an invited advisor, consultant, or lead researcher to diverse grassroots and international organisations including among others, UNCTAD (trade and development), the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), the Aga Khan Development Foundation, Health services, and Economic Planning board. UNCTAD (Geneva) invited her to write the background paper for their chapter on Industrial policy, Technological change and the State, for the Least Developed Countries Report 2009. She was also invited to the Government of India’s National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS).
Prof. Srinivas has been invited as speaker and plenary guest at several venues including the ILO, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and UNESCO, to planners and economists, business groups, scientists and engineers, in Europe, U.S., LAC, and India. Other invitations include proposals at Columbia University for a Paris redesign project, as invited jury critic in architecture and urban design, and as faculty for the NSF IGERT’s new joint engineering and architecture Ph.D. programme.
Prof. Srinivas is a member of the American Economic Association, American Collegiate Schools of Planning, Affiliate of the Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies program, the MIT Industrial Performance Center (IPC), and faculty affiliate at Columbia University’s South Asia Institute (SAI). She has supervised 20 M.S. Columbia university theses in economic development/political economy/ urban and regional planning and been either advisor or committee member to seven Ph.D. students.
Learning from Experience: A gendered approach to social protection for workers in the informal economy (2000, reprinted 2005, ILO) with Frances Lund
Women Organizing for Social Protection(2001, ILO) – as primary author based on analyses conducted with SEWA and the ILO
In addition to articles in journals such as Theory and Society, World Development, and Regional Studies, Smita has been invited to publish book chapters and contribute background papers and chapters in official publications of the UN and sister agencies, and international research collaborations. She has been an invited journal and proposal reviewer, including to World Development, Journal of Development Studies, Feminist Economics, and Oxford University Press (UK).