Debotri Dhar

An award-winning scholar, Dr. Debotri Dhar's transdisciplinary research spans International Relations, Women's Studies, Socio-Legal Studies, and Humanitarian Education, with particular area expertise in South Asia and the United States. A published novelist and short story writer, Dr. Dhar also has an interest in literature as a tool for advancing humanitarianism. Dr. Dhar applies her scholarly expertise to important questions beyond the academy, such as improving educational access and outcomes for women in conflict and post-conflict settings, advancing justice for survivors of sexual violence, including genocidal sexual violence during war, formulating gender-responsive approaches to culture, human rights, and inclusive development, and transforming the androcentrism of international relations through the insights of friendship studies, feminist foreign policy, and the Women, Peace and Security framework (UN Security Council Resolution 1325).

Dr. Debotri Dhar has authored and edited eight books to critical acclaim- published by Bloomsbury (London, New York, New Delhi, Sydney), Speaking Tiger (New Delhi), and Kitaab (Singapore). Her next book is forthcoming with Routledge and another monograph is in progress. Her work has been translated into multiple languages. She has delivered public lectures and invited presentations at universities such as Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Princeton, Boston, University of Pennsylvania, Delhi, and Ashoka, along with broader audiences beyond the academy. She writes regularly in leading newspapers, such as her column She Thinks on gender and public affairs in the Times of India and her column on International Relations/ Global Affairs in the Deccan Chronicle and the Asian Age. Dr. Dhar has contributed to numerous policy-building projects, such as on formulating an inclusive WPS framework for India, devising gender-sensitive interpretations of culture for advocates working to end violence against South Asian and South Asian American women in the United States, under the aegis of the Office of Violence Against Women, US Department of Justice, providing media commentaries on gender and geopolitics such as on women under Taliban rule, and tackling online gender-based violence as faculty advisor for a university collaboration with the US Department of State Office of Global Collaborations under the aegis of the Gender Policy Council, White House.

An educator with a passion for curricular development, innovative course design, and the application of research to policy as well as pedagogy, Dr. Debotri Dhar has held several teaching and research appointments in the United States. She taught on feminist thought, area studies, and global affairs at Rutgers University, the College of Wooster in Ohio, and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She was also a visiting researcher at Boston University and the Center for the Education for Women in Michigan. Currently, as an Associate Professor of International Relations in India, she teaches courses on Feminist Foreign Policy, Gender Violence in War, and India-US Relations.

Dr Debotri Dhar founded the Hummingbird Global Writers' Circle in New York in 2016-17, to foster a love of books, cultural exchange, and global understanding. The Hummingbird Global Leaders Forum was added later, to advance policy-engaged scholarship on humanitarian governance.