Dr. Samita Sen

Biography

Samita Sen is the Vere Harmsworth Professor of Imperial Naval History at the University of Cambridge. She received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University in 1992 and was a Junior Research Fellow at Trinity College from 1990 to 1994. Sen taught at Calcutta University and Jadavpur University from 1994 to 2018, and she served as Vice-Chancellor of Diamond Harbour Women’s University from 2013 to 2015. She is known for her monograph, "Women Labour in Late Colonial India" (Cambridge University Press, 1999), which won the Trevor Reese Prize in Commonwealth History. Her research specializes in colonial South Asia and addresses contemporary interdisciplinary issues such as gender, labor, domestic violence, and the informal sector. Sen has contributed to several academic journals, including Modern Asian Studies and South Asian History Culture. As an active member of the women’s movement in India, she participated in the Beijing Conference in 1995 and has been involved in various campaigns for gender justice and equality in higher education. Sen has supervised numerous students on topics ranging from social reform to women's roles in contemporary governance and labor rights.

Research Interests

Experience