Gopa Sabharwal

Gopa Sabharwal is a sociologist by training and her research engages with ethnicity, identity and social history. A doctorate in Sociology for her research on ethnic groups and ethnicity in Belgaum in Karnataka, Sabharwal has had a long and illustrious career at Delhi University. She founded the Department of Sociology at the Lady Shri Ram College for Women, very early in her career in 1993.

In 18 years she successfully transformed this Department into one of the best in the country with an unrivalled field-work component and regular student exchange from as far as Australia, the United States, Singapore and Japan.

She was hand picked by the Nalanda Mentor Group and its Chairperson Prof. Amartya Sen, to spearhead the task of establishing the prestigious Nalanda University. She is arguably one of India’s younger Vice Chancellors and has enormous creative ability to transform the vision of Nalanda into the reality of Nalanda University as a center of world-wide excellence .