Extracurriculars

Graduate

At the University of Califonia at Berkeley, I served as a Board member and the Co-director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the  Bengali Student Association. I work on research projects, cultural events and diversity related to Bengali Culture at BSA. I have worked on projects such as Ray@101, a project to celebrate Satyajit Ray's 101th anniversary, and a Partition Project focused on the partitions of Bengal. I was the primary curator at the exhibition title Dalit Political Movement in Bengal: Jogesndranath Mondal and Making of Modern South Asian Nation(s). I also organised and facilitated the conversation with Hugo and nebula Prize nominated author, Mimi Mondal titled Rivers, Forests and Earth: Speculating Dalit Histories and Dalit Futures in Bengal. Both of these were part of our Dalit History Month celebrations.

You can watch the trailer for the exhibition here: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq1eMXMgN1F/. This video was conceptualized by me and Cynthia Rahman, then the cinematographer of BSA, and the current director for diversity, equity and inclusion. The exihibition was conceptualized by me and designed by Cynthia Rahman, Rokshana Bushra and Lamisah Choushury.

You can watch the video of the talk here: https://www.facebook.com/ISASatUCBerkeley/videos/1358143195036137


I also served as the Administrative Assistant for the Capital and Finance Committee at the Berkeley Student Cooperative, where I help with the logistical and administrative tasks for the Committee


Undergraduate 

In my time at Ashoka University, I have pursued several extracurricular interests, some of which closely relate to my academic interest. Here I have listed some of them.

I have been a part of the Ashoka History Society, one of the 13 academic societies on Campus, since the beginning of 2018. I served as the President of the same between February and August of 2019. One of the major projects that I have taken up for the Society is that of building an Online Archive. This archive functions on the principle of documenting the present to become the past in the future. This archive therefore documents any History related event at Ashoka. Another projects that I led is organizing a Research Colloquium for the Teaching Fellows of the Department in December 2020. Other projects that I have been involved in have been Memory Museum 2.0, a project where we display objects that depict personal histories of the people of the Ashokan Community in a two-day pop up museum; and some of the social media projects for the society.


I have served as the Minister of Academic Affairs, leading the Ministry of Academic Affairs in the 6th Undergraduate Student Government at Ashoka University (2020-2021). I have been in the forefront of academic negotiations for the COVID-hit semester. Some of the negotiations that I have worked on were the P/NR negotiations for Spring 2020, the Academic Accommodations negotiations for Monsoon 2020, etc. I have also worked on making the website for the Ministry, and coordinating the Orientation Week for the Undergraduate Batch of 2023.


I have been a founding member of Sandhi, The Languages Society of Ashoka University, and have been a part of it between Monsoon 2017 and Spring 2020. I have taken up many projects there and have served as the Finance Coordinator in my time there. I have been part of conceptualizing and working on the Society's flagship project, Bhasha Mash, a month-long celebration of language in February every year.


I have also worked as an Academic Counsellor for the Young Scholars Program at Ashoka University, a program for high school students across India.


This photograph is taken by Cynthia Rahman