Biography

Dr. Shailza has about a decade’s experience straddling across academia, research, and legal practice in India and the United Kingdom. Having completed her B.A.LL.B (Hons.) from JGLS in 2014, Shailza worked with the Projects and Infrastructure team at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, Delhi, between 2014 and 2017. Thereafter, she completed her MSc in International Politics from SOAS, University of London in 2018. In her doctoral research, completed in 2025, she uses a Marxist-Feminist and a Social Movement Theory framework to examine women’s political agency in revolutionary politics, contributing towards an understanding of the transformative role women play in the movements, withing their class and caste contexts. 

As part of her teaching experience, Shailza worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster, UK where she taught International Law and Development, TWAIL, and Introduction to Government and Law.  

Shailza’s research interests lie at the intersection of gender, legal theory, carceral studies, social movements, and contemporary Indian politics. She is a member of the Law, Development and Conflict Research Group (LDC) at the University of Westminster and the Indian Association for Women’s Studies. Shailza has also closely worked with the SOAS South Asia Institute and been a PGR Representative at the South Asia Centre, University of Exeter. At LDC, she has been involved in research projects, including the planning and dissemination of the project titled ‘Workers of the World after COVID-19’ which archived the experiences of workers, trade unionists, and activists across four jurisdictions. Shailza has also provided research assistance on projects that examined the experiences and impact of gender-based violence in higher education institutions in India and the UK and another which involved the digitisation of courtrooms in India and the UK. 

She has participated in international conferences that explored themes at the intersection of law, politics and society. As the co-founder of an online collective Detention Solidarity, she along with her co-founder was invited to present at SOAS' Carceral Policy, Policing and Race Inaugural Conference in 2022.