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Aarthi Sridhar is a founder trustee of Dakshin Foundation and heads its Communities and Resource Governance Programme. She is also one of the founding co-PI’s of The Southern Collective, which houses the Sea Lexicon. Her research interests cover a range of historical and contemporary socio-legal studies, with a focus on regulating resource use, environmental justice and democratic practices.

Dr. Annu Jalais is an environmental anthropologist and Associate Professor at Krea University. She works on the human–animal interface, environmental justice, religious identity, gender, caste, and migration. Her primary focus is on South Asia, specifically Bangladesh and India, and her zones of interest encompass Southeast Asia and China, especially around the Indian Ocean exchanges in the religious, cultural, and environmental realms. Jalais authored Forest of Tigers: People, Politics and Environment in the Sundarbans (Routledge, 2010) and co-authored The Bengal Diaspora: Rethinking Muslim Migration (Routledge, 2016). She is deeply committed to making academic work more relevant and likes to work with individuals and organizations committed to social justice and change.
Dr. Jalais is one of four co-PIs at The Southern Collective, which houses the Sea Lexicon. The Southern Collective was awarded a grant by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) to build a Transdisciplinary Collaboratory in the Northern Indian Ocean in partnership with the Dakshin Foundation, where she is also an Adjunct Fellow.

Lakshmi Pradeep recently completed her Ph.D. in South Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include Anthropology, Political Ecology, Science and Technology Studies, and Island Studies. Her doctoral research was based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork in the Lakshadweep Islands of India, where she explored the questions of coral conservation and island protection. She holds an M.Phil degree (Sociology) from Jawaharlal Nehru University and Integrated Masters in Sociology from the University of Hyderabad, India. She is a project partner in co-creating a ‘Sea Lexicon’ for the ‘Southern Collective,’ an initiative of the Transdisciplinary Collaborations on the Northern Indian Ocean. Apart from these, she has a deep interest in climate fiction and storytelling methods in the Anthropocene.

Sayan Dey grew up in Kolkata, West Bengal, and works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is also a Faculty Fellow at The Harriet Tubman Institute, York University, Canada, and Critical Cultural Studies Faculty, at NYI Global Cultural, Cognitive and Linguistic Studies, New York. Some of his published books are: Myths, Histories and Decolonial Interventions: A Planetary Resistance (Routledge, 2022) and Green Academia: Towards Eco-friendly Education Systems (Routledge, 2022). His forthcoming monograph is Performing Memories and Weaving Archives: Creolized Cultures Across the Indian Ocean (Anthem Press, 2025). His areas of research interest are postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, critical race studies, food humanities, and critical diversity literacy. He can be reached at: www.sayandey.com.

Amrita Rudra graduated from the School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS), Krea University, with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Social Studies and Concentrations in History and Environmental Studies, in 2023. They are deeply interested in climate change adaptation and mitigation for marginalized communities, social policy, social innovation, migration, and queer theory. She is an incoming 2024 MPP candidate at the School of Public Affairs, Sciences Po, Paris. She works as a Project Associate at The Southern Collective and Editorial Assistant at the Sea Lexicon. Amrita can be reached at: [email protected]