School of Humanities

Dr. Ekta Singh is an archaeologist by training, with a keen interest in interdisciplinary research that brings together field archaeology, geoarchaeology, material culture studies, rock art, and community-based research. Her broader areas of research interest include Himalayan and Trans-Himalayan archaeology, trade and migration, prehistory, burial and death archaeology, lithic studies, landscape archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, traditional knowledge systems, and the genetic study of Himalayan populations.

Dr. Singh's archaeological interests are in the western Himalayas and the wider Trans-Himalaya, with fieldwork in Lahaul and Spiti, Kinnaur, Uttarakhand, Ladakh, Upper Mustang (Nepal), the Narmada Valley, Rajasthan, and Borneo. Her doctoral research on the archaeology of Spiti Valley, from the earliest times to the 9th century CE, combined exploration, excavation, and geoarchaeological analysis. It is complemented by publications on the valley's ancient ceramic tradition, burial sites, lithic assemblages, and rock art. Her work on borderland archaeology examines the Indian Himalayan Region as a shared cultural and historical corridor rather than a set of bounded territories, and considers how archaeology can inform national identity, integrity, and shared heritage. Her ethnoarchaeological work on mask-making in the Upper Alaknanda Valley and on the Kotha architecture of Garhwal offers a lens on ritual practice, belief systems, and cultural exchange along Himalayan trade corridors.

Dr. Singh is also engaged in interdisciplinary and policy-oriented research. She has contributed to collaborative publications linking archaeology, genetics, and gut-microbiome research, including work in Science Advances (2025) on human admixture histories at the northern Himalayan frontier and in Gut Microbes (2026) on urbanization and the human gut microbiome across South Asia. Her geoarchaeological study of the lithic assemblages from Dzamathang in Spiti Valley was published in the Geological Society, London, Special Publications (2021). She has also worked on a UNESCO-published chapter on migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was a Research Assistant on an ICSSR (Ministry of Education) project on reverse migrants in Uttarakhand, and contributed a chapter on preserving the culture and heritage of the Himalaya to policy recommendations on India's G20 presidency submitted to NITI Aayog and the Government of India.

Dr. Singh secured her doctoral degree in Archaeology from H.N.B. Garhwal University in 2021. She is currently Assistant Professor in the Heritage, Science and Society Programme at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. Previously, she was a Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, working on late Quaternary environmental changes and early human society in the Upper Ganga Basin, and Assistant Professor of History at Shoolini University, where she received the Shoolini Star Faculty award (2023) and was named among the Top 10 Faculty at the Golden Rudraksh Awards (2025). She is a Council Member of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) India 2027. She has presented her work at international forums including Oxford University (2016), the World Archaeological Congress (2022, 2025), International Union of Quaternary Research (2019, 2023), the International Association of Tibetan Studies, and the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association, and has chaired sessions at WAC (Prague 2022, Darwin 2025) and INQUA (Rome 2023). Her public scholarship includes a TEDx talk, invited lectures, and popular writing on Himalayan heritage. Her work emphasises collaboration between archaeology, earth sciences, genetics, and local communities to safeguard cultural heritage under threat from climate change and development pressures.

Antariksh Pasricha is a PhD scholar at NIAS working with Dr. Deepti Navaratna. His work brings together music, technology, and the study of the human brain. With academic training in Computer Science and Hindustani music, and over five years of experience as a music educator, he brings both analytical and creative perspectives to his research. His primary interest in music perception developed through his experience of teaching, where he became fascinated by how the same piece of music could be perceived, interpreted, and experienced so differently by different listeners and students. This curiosity gradually led him to explore the role of individual experience, learning, and culture in shaping musical perception.

 A trained vocalist and guitarist, he often experiments with bringing the melodic phrasing and nuances of Indian ragas to the guitar- an experience that has further deepened his interest in how musical ideas are perceived and expressed across different musical contexts. His doctoral research focuses on the perception of continuous and microtonal pitch in Indian classical music, particularly phenomena such as shruti, meend, and other forms of pitch movement. He is interested in combining behavioural, computational, and neuroscientific approaches to understand how the brain, musical experience, and cultural learning shape our perception of music.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antariksh-pasricha/

Email: antariksh.pasricha@nias.res.in, antariksh.pasricha@gmail.com

Anirban Ghosh is a PhD Scholar in the School of Humanities at NIAS under the program of Heritage Science and Society with the supervision of Dr. S. Udayakumar. 

He is a young archaeologist and an early-career researcher who is enthusiastic about the past for a better future. 

He has academic training in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Archaeology, along with a UGC-NET JRF in Archaeology; his research interests include ethnoarchaeology, traditional performance traditions, archaeology, heritage, and the study of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. He has field experience with the Archaeological Survey of India, including archaeological excavation, documentation, and heritage-related work, and has published research on Indian theatre, dramaturgy, and cultural history.