Rutuja Rokade

Biography

Rutuja Rokade is a PhD student in the History and Philosophy of Science programme and the Department of History. Her research explores ‘labour medical history’ in British India, highlighting the socio-cultural realities of the labourer’s body that shape disease experience, especially when caste, gender and class locations are emphasised. This intervention focusses on the erstwhile Bombay Presidency and the ‘Girni Kamgar’ (mill worker) during the third plague pandemic (1880-1920) and the subsequent outbreaks of respiratory diseases to which the group was susceptible.

Before pursuing her doctoral studies, Rutuja worked as a Teaching Fellow at the Asian University for Women in Chittagong (Bangladesh), where she taught English as a Second Language (ESL) to pre-undergraduate women scholars. She holds a BSc (Hons) in biological sciences and history from KREA University and a subsequent MSc in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology from the University of Oxford where she was an INLAKS Shivdasani scholar.