Dr. Ayona Datta

Biography

Ayona Datta is a Professor of Human Geography at University College London. Her research interests encompass postcolonial urbanism, smart cities, gender citizenship, and regional futures. She has developed a research ethos centered on co-production and grassroots communities, employing digital mapping and visual participatory methods to build gendered capacities within digital urban margins. Datta has received significant funding from the European Research Council, AHRC, ESRC, British Academy, and Swiss National Science Foundation for innovating research on digital urban transformations in the Global South, examining their impacts on everyday social and material gendered geographies. In addition to conducting research, she has served as a frontline editor for Urban Geography since 2017 and has been involved with several editorial boards including Antipode and Dialogues in Human Geography. Datta has received the Busk Medal from the Royal Geographical Society and was nominated as the Geography Section President of the British Science Association in 2023, with plans to be elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2025.

Research Interests

Experience

Awards