Dr. Kavita Sivaramakrishnan

Biography

Kavita Sivaramakrishnan is a public health historian with a focus on South Asia, examining the interplay between politics, health, medicine, and science in the global South. Her early research investigated the politics surrounding 'indigenous' Ayurvedic medicine within the context of late colonial North India, emphasizing the claims and representations shaped by language and religion. She has explored the social histories of epidemics, analyzing the role that experts and scientific evidence played in shaping national and regional politics in South Asia. Her recent work includes a book titled 'World Ages: Rethinking Demographic Crisis,' published by Harvard University Press in 2018, which delves into global politics surrounding aging. Currently, she is engaged in a new book project that investigates the history of consumption and disease risks in South Asia, tracing the transformations of bodies, metabolisms, and minds over the past century. Kavita collaborates with David Jones from Harvard University on a monograph about heart disease in India, which is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant, and she is involved with Jennifer Manly on a research project focused on the cultures of aging and cognitive decline in India and South Africa. Before joining the faculty at the Mailman School, she served as an assistant professor of Sociomedical Sciences and was a David Bell Research Fellow at Harvard University, where she was awarded the Balzan Fellowship for her work on social inequalities in health. Her training in history from Trinity College, Cambridge and Jawaharlal Nehru University, coupled with her experience in archival work and public health policy debates in the global South, provides her with a rich interdisciplinary perspective grounded in rigorous historical methodology.

Research Interests