I am a first year PhD Student at the University of Michigan School of Information (UMSI). Through my research I explore internet humor and online culture, particularly how audiences engage with and cultivate digitally mediated humor. Currently, I am conducting a study that focuses on “cringe” humor within the context of Indian social media culture. My interest in the academic study of humor began long before the PhD, when for my Master’s thesis, titled ‘Social Function of Humour: An Exploratory Study Among Youth’ (2018), where I first interrogated the social constructs around humor. Since then, I have witnessed and participated in the growth of humor scholarship within the Global South and specifically in India. I am a founding member of both the South Asian Humour Studies Collective (SAHSC) and the Humour and the Global South Special Interest Group of the International Society for Humor Studies (ISHS).
Prior to starting the PhD, I spent six years working as a researcher with various development sector organizations in India. As a visiting faculty, I designed and implemented innovative curriculum, and mentored undergraduate research at various institutions across Pune, India. Beyond academia, I am driven to produce accessible and public-facing scholarship. In 2020, I co-founded Academic-ish, an online platform aimed at making academic texts accessible to a general audience, particularly with a focus on works from and about the Global South.