Invisible Rohingya refugees and climate change in Cox’s Bazar

As a Research Scholar in the Ronin Institute, my research focuses on the Rohingya Muslim minority of Burma, one of the world’s most persecuted and vulnerable refugees. My interest in these refugees from Burma (Myanmar) developed during my M.Phil. years at the University of Delhi where I was studying colonial labour migration, particularly the pace …

Imagine a city

A horror movie where being a woman is a crime!  By an Iranian Woman Imagine a movie about a city where people are enthusiastic about science. Imagine that it has a high literacy rate and the universities are always full of students seeking knowledge and success in scholarship. There are many intelligent people living and …

Statement on the Protests in Response to the Murder of George Floyd

By now, you have probably read statements from various organizations addressing the protests currently happening across the United States. It is hard to know what an appropriate institutional response is. I am skeptical of the artifice of a legal corporate entity expressing an opinion. Plus, these institutional statements tend to be bland and hedging, denouncing …

Revisiting the “gig economy” for science on Labor Day

The Ronin Institute’s Research Scholars are drawn from many different career stages, levels of experience and backgrounds.  As we don’t advocate a single model of a career in scholarship (in contrast to the traditional academic pipeline), it isn’t surprising that Research Scholars explore many different means to support their scholarship (this is supported by preliminary …

Op-ed piece on the Alignment of Science and Other Truth-Tellers

Out yesterday in The Scientist is an op-ed piece by yours truly. The basic thrust is that, in an era when facts and expertise and the very nature of reality are under attack, scientists need to recognize that they are part of a larger community of truth-seekers and truth-tellers that includes social scientists, artists, journalists, …

Timothy Snyder on American Democracy

Discussion of politics and policy tends to be dominated by journalists and partisan political operatives. However, scholars often have a different set of insights that come from deep study and that are less distorted by market and ideological pressures. Of particular relevance at this particular moment in American history are scholars of authoritarianism. Last week, …