Dr. Somjita Laha

Dr. Somjita Laha
Fellow

Somjita Laha is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Human Development (IHD), New Delhi. She completed her PhD on informality in electronic waste processing from the University of Manchester. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She has a MA in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a second MA in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Hague. She is interested in interdisciplinary research on political economy of waste, informal economy, global value chains, urban studies, environmental governance and gender in development. Earlier, she has also worked in the development sector on refugee rights- citizenship and rehabilitation, hazardous waste processing and natural resource management. She has done independent assignments for ILO (International Labour Office), Geneva and India, ICRW (International Centre for Research on Women), India and Oxfam, India on Manual Scavenging in India; Working conditions of government employees in South and South-East Asia and Gender and Empowerment under NRLM (National Rural Livelihoods Mission), India.