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Deepti Chatti to deliver talk on women’s empowerment in India
Her study analyzes India’s initiative to expand access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves in low-income households—programs often associated with improved health and time savings for women.
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Staff Reporter - Sat, 08, Nov 2025
- 11:39 EST
- 24
Deepti Chatti / deeptichatti.com
Indian-origin scholar Deepti Chatti is set to deliver a talk at the Global Development Discussion Series on Nov. 13, focusing on how empowerment is experienced by women targeted by sustainable development programs in India.
The event, hosted by the Center for International Research, Education, and Development and co-sponsored by Continuing and Professional Education, will highlight Chatti’s ethnographic research on clean energy transitions in rural India.
An engineer turned ethnographer, Chatti explores the intersections of energy access, gender justice, and climate change. Her talk will draw from her forthcoming book manuscript based on long-term fieldwork in India, examining how women interpret empowerment through government programs promoting clean cooking energy.
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“I found that every environmental question I was interested in was always a social question too,” Chatti said. “But my technical training had not taught me how to frame social research questions or collect and analyze social data in any in-depth way.”
Her study analyzes India’s initiative to expand access to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) stoves in low-income households—programs often associated with improved health and time savings for women.
Chatti’s findings show that the lived experiences of beneficiaries often differ from the assumptions made by policymakers, prompting a re-evaluation of how development outcomes are measured and understood.
At the University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), Chatti is an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, core faculty in the Critical Gender Studies Program, and affiliate faculty with the South Asia Initiative.
Her research and writing have appeared in Environment and Society: Advances in Research, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space, and Energy Research and Social Science.
She is currently completing a book on energy access, air pollution, and climate justice in India, supported by the Sustainable Energy Transitions Initiative, the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
Before joining UC San Diego, Chatti taught at California Polytechnic State University, Humboldt. She earned her doctorate and master of philosophy from Yale University’s School of the Environment, with a graduate certificate in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a master of science from Stanford University, and a bachelor of engineering from Osmania University.
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