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Scholars with India links named in 2026 British Academy fellows
Cohort spans history, economics and global research impact.
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Ankita Baidya - Sun, 19, Jul 2026
- 05:15 EDT
- 260
Seema Alavi and Sonia Bhalotra elected British Academy Fellows / The British Academy
Historian Seema Alavi, a professor at Ashoka University, and economist Sonia Bhalotra of the University of Warwick are among the newly elected Fellows announced by the British Academy as part of its 2026 cohort, according to an official announcement published on the Academy's website on July 17.
The British Academy said 92 scholars have been elected to its Fellowship this year "in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the humanities and social sciences."
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The cohort includes Fellows from 28 universities across the United Kingdom, along with 32 International Fellows and two Honorary Fellows recognised for achievements in law and international affairs, the Academy said.
Alavi, an Indian-origin historian, has been elected an International Fellow in the Academy's section on Early Modern History to 1850, according to her official British Academy Fellow profile, in recognition of research on the social, religious and cultural history of South Asia and the Indian Ocean world across the 18th and 19th centuries.
She earned her doctorate from Cambridge University and previously taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University before joining Ashoka University in 2022, according to her profile.
Her books include "Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire," which received the Albert Hourani Award Honourable Mention and the Monsoon Book Prize in Political Economy, and her most recent work, "Sovereigns of the Sea: Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire."
Bhalotra, also of Indian origin, has been elected a Fellow in economics.
She obtained a BSc Honours in Economics from the University of Delhi before completing an MPhil and DPhil at the University of Oxford, according to her official faculty biography published by the University of Warwick and the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
She is a labour economist whose research spans health, gender and political economy, including studies on maternal and child health, the gender pay gap, and violence against women, conducted across India, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom and other countries, her biography states.
British Academy President Professor Susan J. Smith said in the official announcement that the new Fellows "reflect the remarkable breadth and depth of scholarship across our disciplines," adding that insights from the humanities and social sciences help societies "navigate geopolitical tensions" amid technological, economic and environmental change.
Also elected this year was Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, the civil rights scholar and law professor at Columbia and UCLA, who said in a statement carried in the Academy's announcement that she regarded the honour as "an affirmation... that scholarship from and for the margins has a rightful place in prestigious academic spaces around the world."
The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences and counts more than 1,800 Fellows in its community, according to the Academy.
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