Kala Seetharam Sridhar

Bio

Kala S Sridhar is a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Center for South Asia (CSA) during March-August 2025. She is a professor, Centre for Research in Urban Affairs, Institute for Social and Economic Change, in Bengaluru, India. She has authored/edited books published by Routledge, Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, and Sage, and papers in journals like Regional Science and Urban Economics, Urban Studies, Applied Economics, Area Development & Policy and Environment and Urbanization Asia, among others.

Kala has visited the United Nations University’s World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) multiple times as visiting scholar. Recipient of the Fulbright Nehru fellowship, she was hosted by University of California, Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs, Dept of Urban Planning, in 2021 and 2022. She was a visiting scholar at George Mason University during June-July 2023. She was an Honorary Fellow at Stanford's CSA during June-August 2024. She has done extensive research for the Asian Development Bank (ADB). She is Managing Editor of Journal of Social and Economic Development (Springer). She is on the editorial advisory board of journals like Area Development and Policy (Taylor & Francis), Urban India, and Frontiers in Built Environment-Urban Science. She is presently guiding 4 Ph.D. students on various topics including housing affordability, regional disparities in healthcare infrastructure, stringency of land use regulations and the provision of amenities in peri-urban areas. Four students have graduated with PhD under her guidance, and one is awaiting the final defense of her thesis.

Kala was empanelled to be Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) Chair Professor of Indian Studies (Economics) in Foreign Universities (2015). She has won several international awards for her research on urbanization including the highly competitive Global Development Network medal for outstanding research on development, and national awards such as the VKRV Rao prize for her contribution to social sciences. She was among the top 10% of authors globally on the Social Science Research Network as of August 2024. She has a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University, and M.S. from the University of Iowa.