Scholar in Residence, American University (Washington, D.C.)
Dr. Maina Chawla Singh is an academic, researcher and consultant in higher education with several years of teaching experience at universities in the U.S., India and Israel. Her scholarly work lies at the intersections of Sociology, Gender, Migration Studies and World Politics and her publications reflect her deep interest in issues of Gender, Immigrant communities and the politics of Identity in multi-ethnic societies
Singh has conducted fieldwork among several diaspora communities. Her book Being Indian, Being Israeli : Migration, Ethnicity and Gender in the Jewish Homeland (New Delhi: 2009; Reprint :2014), draws upon extensive fieldwork conducted among Indian Jews in Israel. Singh has also researched other diverse diaspora communities examining issues of identity among second-generation Indian Americans in U.S. politics as well as, issues of assimilation among Indians living in the French Caribbean.
Dr Singh is the author of Gender, Religion, and “Heathen Lands": American Missionary Women in South Asia (1860s – 1940s),(New York: 2000) which draws from her doctoral research focusing on the cross-cultural work of American women missionaries in South Asia. She has also published several scholarly articles on colonialism and the politics of western medicine.
Since 2009, Singh has taught a wide-range of multidisciplinary courses at the School of International Service, American University, Washington D.C. She has lectured widely including at Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Cornell and at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.
As the wife of a senior Indian diplomat, Singh has lived in Russia, Ethiopia, Japan and France and in the U.S. and speaks multiple languages.
Singh currently lives in New Delhi and is a consultant in higher-education promoting collaborative projects between India and U.S. - based universities and offering expertise in tech-based innovations in pedagogy and curriculum design.