Vidyasagar Sharma

Academic Education

2023-04 – Pursuing
Research associate in the DFG project “Navigating Universities. Student aspirations, demarcations and transformations in India and the Philippines” (Navi-gating Unis) - Project management: Prof. Dr. em Joanna Pfaff-Czarnecka

2021-08 – 2022-05
Urban Fellows Programme, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, Bengaluru, India

2018-10 – 2021-02
Master of Philosophy in Political Science, Department of Political Science, University of Delhi, India
Dissertation: Changing Contours of Caste in Urban Spaces: A Case Study of Delhi
Supervisor: Prof. N. Sukumar

2015-07 – 2017-07
Master of Arts (Major in Political Science), Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

2011-07 – 2014-06
Bachelor of Arts (Major in Political Science), School of Social Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India

Awards and Honours

2019-07 – 2023-03
Junior Research Fellowship, University Grants Commission, India

2015-07 – 2016-07
Nirman Foundation Fellowship, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

Research Experience

2022-04 – 2022-06
I worked with Dr Priyadarshini Singh on a project, “State level universities and unpacking their role, with a specific focus on policy-making and broader social justice agenda”, at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, India. I completed detailed literature reviews on key trends in higher education research in India, empirical studies of universities/departments in India and the UK

2022-01 – 2022-03
I worked on an independent research project during the Urban Fellows Programme (2021-22) at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements, India
Project Supervisor: Dr. Gautam Bhan

Memberships
2023-01 - today
Member of the British Sociological Association, UK

Organization
2023-09
Berkeley Journal of Sociology
I have joined the editorial team of the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley.

2021-07
I started an academic initiative, Speaking From Margin, to engage with contemporary discourses of social sciences. It attempts to build academic solidarity for social justice in higher education. We use this initiative to build solidarity among researchers from various marginal locations to engage with evolving knowledge paradigm of social sciences.

Languages
Hindi (mother tongue); English (fluent); German (Learning); Bhojpuri (mother dialect)

Research areas
• Belonging
• Sociology of Education
• Social Exclusion
• Higher Education in India