Saveetha

Background

About Saveetha

I got my Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, the University of Delhi for the thesis "The Politics of Immunisation in Developing Countries: A Case of the Human Papillomavirus Vaccine in India". My Ph.D. thesis was an ethnography of the indigenous Khoya community in the district of Khammam in Telangana State. I lived in Khammam for eighteen months to conduct my fieldwork. Prior to my Ph.D, I earned a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. I have more than 14 years of field experience in the development sector in India and South Asia and have predominantly worked with the communities in central India on the issues of access to the public health system, maternal and child health, nutrition security, and bioethics. I served as the India representative of "The Lancet- University of Oslo Youth Commission on Global Governance for Health". In my last job, I served as the Regional Manager of the South Asia Region at Give2Asia, a Non-Profit helping communities meet development goals.As a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Practical Ethics, University of California, San Diego (2019-2021), I was involved in creating frameworks that could promote a rigorous and robust practice of bioethics in the context of India and explore the dissemination of scientific knowledge to differently literate communities. My work predominantly entailed research on the process of seeking informed consent from communities to run crucially benefitting scientific research programs, thereby attaining social inclusion to scientific advancements. Presently I am a Senior Scientist (Social Sciences) at the Tata Institute for Genetics and Society and lead the work on Community Engagement and am also involved in social science research projects; science communication and science outreach activities.