People Page

Prof Malavika Kapur has a long-standing association with NIAS. Her pioneering work on research in developmental psychology has been her main contribution.  Exploratory research into childcare in indigenous health care systems has been her abiding interest. At NIAS, she has brought out the Proceedings in 2012 of a seminar on Developmental Psychology Education sponsored by the ICSSR (India), NWO (Netherlands) and ESRC (UK) held in Cambridge University earlier on .   She also organised a workshop for young scholars on Cross Cultural Research Collaboration in the spring of 2010.  In 2016 was the member of the committee appointed by the UGC to work on the syllabus in Psychology incorporating contemporary Western and Indian psychology and it is on public domain with the UGC.

She organised a multidisciplinary brainstorming seminar at NIAS in 2013 on Public Risk Perception and brought out the proceedings of the same in 2014.  She is on the Advisory Committee of WHO 11th revision on Child Psychiatric Disorders from 2011 onwards. 

Currently appointed a member of Focus group on Early Child Care and Education (ECCE) for one year to prepare a position paper by the NCERT to translate the New Education Policy into action at the grassroots level.

Currently appointed a member of the Academic Council Children’s university, Gandhi Nagar Gujarat, from 29-6-2022 for a term of three years.

She has authored 9 books and has edited 7 books, has 40 book chapters and over 80 journal articles to her credit. 

Areas of Research: 

Western Psychology (Clinical), Developmental Psychology, Developmental Child Psychopathology, Clinical Child Psychology, School Psychology, Community Psychology for Schools. Psychological Testing, Psychological Interventions, Indian Psychology and Indigenous Health Care Systems - Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha, Tibetan Medicine, Comparative Studies on Western and Indian Psychology form her  Academic Publications along with  Fiction for children and adults

Urban Outreach

Prof Malavika Kapur has been running a free Child Guidance Centre (video documentary by Anuradha Rana of Prasanna Counselling Child Guidance Centre, Bull Temple Road, Bengaluru) in Bengaluru with the help of trained volunteers since 2003.

Rural Outreach

She has longstanding commitment to counselling children and promotion of psychosocial development of rural and tribal children for over two decades.  She also conducts workshops and delivers keynote addresses and lectures to lay public, parents, school teachers, counsellors and the academic community. She is committed to promotion of child mental health and overall psychological development of children.

Action research on outcome evaluation of child centred, play based strategies in the promotion of psycho social development of tribal primary schools children and Science workshops SC/ST 10th graders in HD Kote , Mysore district  four Ashram schools  and one high school.

Shalini Dixit, is an M.Phil- PhD from Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Masters in Psychology. 

She received NCERT Doctoral Fellowship for her PhD research. Her doctoral work on the understanding of history was awarded D Sinha Best Doctoral Dissertation Award by the National Academy of Psychology in the year 2013. She has had years of experience in teaching and research in a number of colleges in University of Delhi including Jesus & Mary College and Mata Sundri College (Department of Elementary Education) and Kamla Nehru College (Department of Psychology) as Assistant Professor. She also worked with Department of Educational Psychology and Foundations of Education, NCERT; Save the Children, Finland; and James Cook University Australia, Singapore Campus. Her familiarity and interest lies in Cultural and Cognitive Processes in appreciation of History, Critical aspects Educational Psychology , Cultural Processes, Social Psychology, Gender Issues with Social Psychological perspective, and Rojerian approach to Personality and Communications etc. 

Her research area has been understanding and notions of history amongst people in Santali tribal cultural community

Jeebanlata Salam obtained her master's degree in sociology from Delhi school of economics, University of Delhi and a doctorate degree in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Prior to joining NIAS as an Adjunct Faculty, she served as an Assistant Professor in the Education Program at the School of Social Sciences at NIAS from February 2016 to July 2025., Dr. Jeebanlata Salam taught sociology at the University of Delhi. She taught as invited visiting faculty at the science and liberal arts programme, National Institute of Design, Bengaluru Campus.

Research interests: 
Sociology & anthropology of education, social exclusion, state-society relations, nation & identity aspirations, conflict & violence, human rights, and youth. 

Teaching courses: 
Sociology of education, social exclusion, and education & research methodology. 

Shivali Tukdeo was an Associate Professor in the education programme at NIAS. Her scholarly engagements are rooted in diverse disciplinary interactions including education policy, critical social theory and sociology of education among others. Her research interests include sociology of education, global studies in education and gender studies. 

Sayan is a PhD scholar interested in the aspects of human-wildlife relations; interdisciplinary dimensions of wildlife conservation in India; gender, environment and development; political ecologies of rural livelihood and environmental conservation, and environment and development in northeast India. For PhD, Sayan is examining behavioural and political ecologies of human-wild elephant interactions in the state of Assam, India with a critical focus on gendered interactions, impacts, adaptations and knowledge formations.

Other than PhD work, Sayan had looked into nature of community participation in wildlife conservation projects in the states of Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, India (2017-18); traditional hunting practices, bushmeat consumption patterns and cross-border wildlife trade in Nagaland, India (2016); impacts on local community due to degradation of a critical urban wetland in Kolkata, India (2019-20).

In 2021, Sayan has published two co-authored peer reviewed journal articles and one book chapter in an edited volume. The journal articles are titled : (1) On the inadequacy of environment impact assessments for projects in Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park of Goa: A peer review (Journal of Threatened Taxa), (2). ‘Everyday- Conservation’: A study of actors and processes in an elephant conservation project in Assam, India (Human Dimensions of Wildlife). The book chapter is titled as: Understanding borderlands through elephant corridors in the Yunan-Bengal-Burma Landscape (Routledge India)

Sayan has been awarded Junior Research Fellowship by University Grants Commission. For PhD fieldwork, Sayan has received grants from The Rufford Foundation, Inlaks Foundation and Idea Wild Foundation.

Prior to joining PhD, Sayan Completed B.E in Metallurgical and Material Engineering from Jadavpur University (Kolkata) and worked as Manager at Tata Steel Limited. With a shift in career, Sayan completed M.A in Ecology, Environment and Sustainable Development from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati.