Dr. Alokeparna Sengupta
October 25, 2023 2024-05-23 5:19Dr. Alokeparna Sengupta
Dr. Alokeparna Sengupta
Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Research
Ph.D Politecnico di Milano, (Italy);
M.A. Domus Academy, Italy + University of Wales, Cardiff, UK (Dual Degree);
B.Arch. MSU, Vadodara
Alokeparna specializes in the field of urban mobility, inclusive mobility design and political ecology of urban transport. She looks at transportation and physical mobility through intersectional lenses of design, sociology, and geography.
She received her Ph.D. from Dipartimento Architettura e Studi Urbani (DAStU) at Politecnico di Milano, Italy and researched the socio-spatial impacts on non-transport land use of a mega-transport project in the context of Delhi. She has an in-depth understanding of qualitative research methods as applied to public spaces, livelihood + mobility choices and stakeholder consultation. She has engaged in fieldwork within urban peripheral communities to study matters of dislocation, re-settlement, and disrupted mobility narratives. Additionally, she also researched the changes and delays in the construction timeline of a high-end housing project in response to the growth and development of the transport project. Alokeparna is passionate about teaching and views the classroom as a dynamic space for intersectional knowledge production. Since the last five years she has been actively developing pedagogical methods using an integrated approach of technical and humanities-based tools and techniques for teaching and learning of various aspects of urban transport, mobility, and public spaces. She has developed and taught seminar courses such as Space and Place, Audits and Assessments, Community Mobilities and Access, Society and Health and studio courses such as Physical Mobility Atelier.
The Physical Mobility Atelier teaches fieldwork and research based content and urban design-based content every alternate semester. She truly believes in bringing rigour into classroom and post-covid has been attempting to combine rigour with compassion as a way of working with students. She finds much happiness in teaching and training students to become meaningful future practitioners.
Alokeparna enjoys walking through the narrowest of alleys, on wide roads, flyovers, foot over bridges as ways of experiencing varied streetscapes. Inclusion and equity are important for her, and she tries to incorporate them in her daily life as well as her work. In her free time, apart from walking, she also enjoys watercolour painting, baking cakes and playing with her dog-daughter Olive.
- May 2024, Invited Panelist, Informalities and Mobility Justice in Panel discussion for Book Launch: Atlas of Informal Settlements at OP JGU, Sonipat
- April 2024, Presented Paper in Faculty Research Brownbag titled “Can Systems Thinking and Assemblage be a Conversation for Mobility Justice?”, Jindal School of Art and Architecture, Sonipat
- December 2023, Invited Speaker in symposium Calibrating Urban Liveability in the Global South, Gendered Perspectives organised by Urban Studies Foundation, MANIT Bhopal and ETCH. Talk title: Women’s Perception of Safety on the Roads and its Links to Social Class
- December 2023, Presented Paper titled: “Mobility Justice Pedagogy for Whom? Reading Urban Roads Beyond Car Usage” in the conference Benchmarking Spatial Justice in Policymaking, Planning & Design, Centre for the Just City, TU Delft
- September 2023, participated in the Faculty Development Program Breaking Barriers: Universal Design for Accessibility in the Built Environment, organised by COA Training and Research Centre, Bhopal and McGyan’s School of Architecture, Ooty
- August – October 2023, Sessions Chair and Moderator for JSAA Research Talks Series titled: Im/mobilities – three talks discussing im/mobilities through archives, ethnographies and policies
- June 2023, Curated and Led a walk for the Think Design Summer School “Walking through History: Community and Heritage” at Chandni Chowk, Delhi
- May 2023, Discussant for Road Safety Roundtable – Rethink Mobility for Safe School Zones organised by TRIPC, IIT Delhi and HumanQind
- January 2023, Invited Speaker. Talk titled “Understanding Place for Mobility Justice” as part of Lecture Series for HumanQind Fellowship 2022
- October 2022, Presented Paper in Faculty Research Brownbag titled “Implementing SDGs for Road Safety in Bulandshahr, U.P”
- July 2021, Presented Paper titled: “Narrative Account of Eyes on the Street: Stories of a Traffic Circle” in RC21 Sensing the City | Place, People, Power, Antwerp,Online Conference (COVID)
- July 2020, Invited Speaker. Reclaim the Bus Campaign in Delhi’s Bus System and The Challenge of Ensuring Safe and Universal Accessibility organised by the Institute for Democracy and Sustainability Delhi and SUM Net
- June 2019, Co-Designed, Co-Organised and Co-Taught a Workshop on Mural Making with Stencils for JGU Summer School. Taught mural painting to 30 school students using handmade stencils at O.P JGU, Sonipat
- January- February 2019 Painted Street Art Mural as part of a team led by artist Bhajju Shyam in Lodhi Art Festival organised by St+Art India + MCD Delhi at Lodhi Colony, Delhi
- October 2019 Painted Street Art Mural as part of a team led by artist Yip Yew Chong in Lodhi Art Festival organised by St+Art India + MCD Delhi at Lodhi Colony, Delhi
- Forthcoming WRI ( 2018) – “The Impact of Rapid Transit on Residential Neighborhoods – Perception studies in two residential neighborhoods in Delhi, India. Authors :Mehta,P; Goswami, S; Sengupta, A; Das,H
- 2015 – TRIPP (2015) “Traffic and Safe Communities”. New Delhi: Transportation Research & Injury Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Authors :Tiwari,G; Sengupta, A; Mohan, D; Varma,R
- 2015 – TRIPP (2015) “Safe Streets for Agra”. New Delhi: Transportation Research & Injury Prevention Programme, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. Authors :Tiwari,G ; Varma,R ; Mohan, D; Sengupta, A
2013 – Pessina, G, and Sengupta, A (2013). “Envisioning the future of Mumbai/Bombay.” Cities to be tamed? Conference;Planum. The Journal of Urbansim, no 26, vol. 1/2013
- 2021 -– Narrative Analysis Study of a Traffic Circle in Bulandshahr, UP, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Oriented Planning and Design for Neglected Cities and Community Participation –Phase IV (Joint Project between TRIP Centre, IIT Delhi and IATTS, Japan).
2017 – Part of research team: Study on Urban Transportation and Traffic Safety of Small Cities and Communities, with an Orientation to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) . (TRIP Centre, IIT Delhi collaboration with IATTS, Japan).
Urban Public Transport, Political Ecology of Urban Transport, Public Spaces, Inclusive Mobility, Physical Accessibility, Delhi, Walkability, Mobilities, Transport Mega-Projects