I am an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and The Polytechnic School at ASU, where I run re-Engineered, an interdisciplinary group that embeds environmental protection, social justice, and peace in engineering. Current areas of work and teaching include:
creating structures to mobilize engineers and scientists to collaborate with community groups addressing environmental, climate, and energy justice challenges
understanding participation in just energy transitions
infusing principles of justice into energy technology design
reimagining the future of environmental governance
activist engineering and environmentally-responsible engineering
fluid/gas dynamics
use-inspired design
space systems
I am originally from Mumbai, India, but feel equally at home in Michigan or Washington, D.C. (and now, the Valley!). I studied aerospace engineering (specializing in gas dynamics and combustion) and sustainability ethics at the University of Michigan. I then spent three years as a AAAS Fellow in Washington, D.C., first at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the Innovation Team, where I worked on climate change resilience and low-cost air pollution sensors; and then at the U.S. Department of Energy in the Water Power Technologies Office, helping design and run the Wave Energy Prize. I also work as co-founder of the Constellation Prize.
You can read more about what we do on our group website here, and at our group blog here.
Education
Ph.D. Aerospace Engineering and Sustainability Ethics, University of Michigan 2012
B.S.E. Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan 2007
From philosophy to education to practice, I am passionate about creating an engineering profession that embeds the values of peace, social justice, and ecological holism at the very heart of engineering thinking. Engineers have and will continue to be integral in the design and development of technologies that shape human relationship to the Earth. Thus, to infuse engineers with ideals of justice, with practical tools to understand the impact of their work on people and the Earth, and with the ability to work intimately with those who have different kinds of knowledge and experiences, is to change the world.
I ask three questions: Why are we engineers? For whose benefit do we work? What is the full measure of our moral and social responsibility?
You can check out the work we do in re-Engineered here and here.
US Environmental Protection Agency, Innovation Team, Office of Research and Development (2013-2014) US Department of Energy, Water Power Technologies Office (2014-2016)
