PI: Ufuk Akcigit, Department of Economics
Partner Organizations:
The "Artificial Intelligence, Innovation, and Growth Summit" is a two-phase initiative aimed at helping developing economies, particularly India, navigate the intersection of AI, innovation policy, and economic growth. Building on insights from the World Bank's World Development Reports (2024 and forthcoming 2026) and led by UChicago Professor Ufuk Akcigit in collaboration with Dr. Gaurav Nayyar, the program convenes policymakers, researchers, and tech leaders to craft actionable frameworks. The first phase—a three-day summit in New Delhi—will address AI innovation, regulation, workforce development, and regional collaboration, culminating in state-specific action plans. A follow-up workshop in June 2026 will evaluate implementation progress and reinforce cooperative research. The initiative will generate policy frameworks, expert networks, and toolkits to guide AI-driven development across middle-income countries.
PI: Eleonore Rimbault, Department of Anthropology
Partner Organizations: Other Books
“Translating Ambedkar” is a multilingual translation and engagement initiative focused on bringing B.R. Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste to new audiences through the publication of a French edition and two public events in India. Led in collaboration with independent publisher Other Books, the project supports both the editorial costs of the French translation and the organization of a public forum in Kozhikode and a scholarly workshop at the UChicago Delhi Center. By connecting scholars, translators, and community actors, the initiative aims to broaden the text’s global reach, foster reflection on caste across cultural contexts, and reaffirm Ambedkar’s relevance within international conversations on social justice, political theory, and decolonization.
PI: Maanasa Raghavan, Department of Human Genetics
Partner Organizations: Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences
This project, led by Dr. Maanasa Raghavan at the University of Chicago, centers on ancient human genomics to better understand South Asia’s complex population history and its impacts on modern health. In collaboration with Indian and Sri Lankan researchers, including Dr. Niraj Rai, the team investigates genetic diversity shaped by migration, endogamy, and social practices, as well as the gut microbiome’s response to dietary shifts among Indigenous communities. To ensure ethical engagement and community dialogue, the team will host dissemination events in Srinagar, Kohima, Colombo, and multiple village sites across India and Sri Lanka in 2025, including a press conference at the Delhi Center, to share research findings in accessible formats and gather feedback from participants and the public.
PI: Anna Schultz, Department of Music
Partner Organizations: Ashoka University, Archives and Research Centre for Ethnomusicology
This two-day symposium, part of Philip V. Bohlman’s Borderlands of Sonic Encounter project, explores how South Asia’s geographic and cultural borderlands are brought to life through sound and screening practices. Moving beyond traditional cinema halls, it focuses on outdoor and mobile projection—shadow puppetry, magic lantern shows, touring talkies—as well as contemporary audiovisual practices in refugee camps and contested spaces. Through film screenings, scholarly panels, and performances, the symposium examines how sound and image mediate experiences of displacement, heritage, and identity in South Asia’s border zones. Events include a keynote by Anna Schultz, performances by the Gangavane family of Maharashtra, and discussions with filmmakers such as Amar Kanwar and Samarth Mahajan, culminating in a keynote by film scholar Ranjani Mazumdar.
PI: Samir Mayekar, Booth School of Business
Partner Organizations: IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, Plaksha University
This project proposes the creation of a University of Chicago-led Deep Tech Polsky Incubator and Accelerator in India to strengthen the country’s rapidly expanding innovation ecosystem. Despite India’s growth as a global startup hub, deep tech ventures still face challenges in mentorship, commercialization, and scaling. Leveraging the proven success of UChicago’s Polsky Center—including initiatives like Duality and Transform—the program will partner with top Indian institutions to deliver entrepreneurial training, connect startups to funding networks, and build sustainable commercialization pathways. Anchored at the UChicago Delhi Center, this initiative aims to catalyze job creation, tech transfer, and India’s leadership in sectors such as AI, quantum technology, and life sciences, while advancing India’s national innovation goals.
PI: Trevor Price, Department of Ecology and Evolution
Partner Organizations: Wildlife Institute of India, GB Pant Institute of the Himalayan Environment
This project builds on a decade of UChicago-supported work addressing India’s biodiversity, focusing on protected areas and climate change impacts. In 2026, the project will convene two stakeholder meetings near Jorhat—one on habitat restoration near the Hollongapar Gibbon Reserve, and another on the interaction between climate change, invasive species, and land use—followed by on-ground research in the Eastern and Western Ghats. Long-term ecological data from these sites, including bird, insect, and plant monitoring since the 1970s, will be revisited to assess biodiversity change. In collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India and local partners, the project prioritizes field-based insights and community engagement to inform conservation strategies across ecologically sensitive regions.
PI: James Nye, Department of South Asian Studies
Partner Organizations: Adivasi Academy
This two-year initiative will establish the foundation for a larger program to digitally document and present lexical and grammatical data from endangered, tribal, and minority languages across South Asia. Building on the Digital Dictionaries of South Asia and in collaboration with the Adivasi Academy and Professor G.N. Devy’s People’s Linguistic Survey of India, the project combines linguistic scholarship with community-driven ethnographic methods to preserve languages at risk of extinction. A workshop at the Adivasi Academy in Gujarat will train participants in digital and linguistic methodologies, followed by a public presentation at the UChicago Delhi Center. The project supports language preservation, cultural knowledge, and digital humanities, while also contributing to pedagogy and comparative linguistic research.
PI: Andrew Fergusson, Department of Chemistry
Partner Organizations: Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research
This project convenes computational researchers to advance the study of glassy materials—disordered systems with slow, complex dynamics central to fields from physics to biology. Despite their technological relevance, glasses remain difficult to model due to their structural complexity and history-dependent properties. The initiative focuses on harnessing recent breakthroughs in AI and machine learning, including surrogate modeling, enhanced sampling, and structure-dynamics prediction, to improve understanding and design of glasses. By uniting researchers across disciplines, the project aims to develop scalable simulation methods, deepen theory, and accelerate the discovery of novel glassy materials with tailored optical, mechanical, and electronic properties.
PI: Robert Chaskin, Crown Family School of Social Work
Partner Organizations: Indiana University, Gujarat Institute of Rural Management
This qualitative research project investigates how economically marginalized Muslim youth in Kolkata and Mumbai perceive and respond to discrimination in urban India. Focusing on four historically and demographically distinct neighborhoods, the study explores daily experiences of exclusion and the coping mechanisms young people employ amid rising political and cultural marginalization. Through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and local data analysis, the research aims to illuminate structural barriers—such as residential segregation and educational inequality—that hinder Muslim youth integration and to provide insights into their resilience and resistance in the face of systemic discrimination.
PI: Sunanda Prabhu Gaunkar, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Partner Organizations: IIT Bombay, The STAGE Center
The Vidyut Project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between UChicago’s STAGE Lab, IIT Bombay, and rural Indian communities aimed at improving energy efficiency in agricultural irrigation through visual storytelling and interactive education. Building on research by Dr. Priya Jadhav’s lab, the project addresses demand-side energy inefficiencies by developing board games and short films that help farmers understand low-cost tools like capacitors. Informed by field visits and farmer feedback, the project promotes engagement with sustainable irrigation technologies. A 2025–26 workshop will train students in science communication, evaluate the project’s impact, and culminate in a documentary showcasing the collaborative development process and farmer experiences.
PI: Supratik Guha, Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Partner Organizations: IIT Kanpur
This project develops and deploys real-time wireless sensing nodes to improve monitoring of in-line chlorination (ILC) in rural Indian water systems, building on collaborations between UChicago’s Development Innovation Lab (DIL), IIT Kanpur, and Indian state governments. Despite the proven public health benefits of ILC in reducing under-5 mortality from waterborne diseases, manual chlorine monitoring remains costly and unreliable. Led by Professors Supratik Guha and Michael Kremer, the team will install ORP-based sensor networks in eight Andhra Pradesh villages, validate them against gold-standard methods, and use machine learning to correct signal drift. The initiative aims to enhance water quality assurance and enable scalable, cost-effective treatment monitoring aligned with India’s Jal Jeevan Mission.
PI: Anindita Basu, Department of Medicine
Partner Organizations: All India Institute of Medical Sciences
This project builds a collaborative framework between UChicago and AIIMS New Delhi to compare inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) phenotypes using patient-derived intestinal organoids and single-cell multi-omics. By integrating clinical expertise and computational genomics, the Basu and Ahuja labs aim to standardize protocols, share de-identified data, and analyze genetic and environmental drivers of IBD across demographically distinct populations. Through seminars, mutual lab visits, and advanced computational modeling, the project will unify research pipelines and develop scalable tools to investigate disease heterogeneity, paving the way for future joint funding and deeper insight into IBD pathogenesis across global contexts.