Neema Kudva

Neema Kudva's research focuses on international urbanization, particularly issues related to small cities and their regions, and on institutional structures for equitable planning and development at the local level. She has explored various aspects of the role of public agencies and nongovernmental organizations in planning and development, primarily in South Asia but also in the U.S.

Kudva directs the International Studies in Planning program and is the faculty lead for the Nilgiris Field Learning Center, a collaborative program of Cornell University and the Keystone Foundation, India. At Cornell, she is affiliated with the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs, the South Asia Studies Program at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Visual Studies Program, and is a faculty fellow at Carl Becker House. Prior to joining CRP in 2001, she worked as a planning consultant to public agencies in San Francisco and as an architect in India and Europe.

Kudva received her Dip.Arch. from the school of architecture at Ahmedabad, India, in 1989 and her M.Arch./M.C.P. and Ph.D. from the University of California–Berkeley in 2001.

Related Pages

• Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future
• Nilgiris Field Learning Center
• South Asia Program, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies

Related News

• Building Resilience
• "Collaboratory" Shares Ideas on Food, Healing, Justice
• Kudva Initiates Diversity-Focused Classes at Carl Becker House
• Interdisciplinary Conference: Urban South Asia Writ Small
• Cornell Close-Ups: CRP's Neema Kudva Says Nomadic Lifestyle Influences Perspective Work

Classes (Selected)

• CRP 6740 Urban Transformations in the Global South
• CRP 6150 Current Debates on NGOs
• CRP 3850 Planning and Sustainability, the Case of the Nilgiris Biosphere (NFLC, Kotagiri, India)

• CRP 3899 (101-103) West Campus Seminars – Becker Café, Cornell University Becker-in-Service and Thriving RED

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships (Selected)

• Senior Long Term Research Fellow, American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Chicago and Delhi (spring and summer 2017)
• Faculty Fellow in Residence, Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future (ACSF) Faculty Fellowship for Humanities, Social Sciences, and Performing Arts, Cornell University (fall 2016)
• Kendall S. Carpenter Memorial Advising Award, Cornell University (2015)
• "Urban South Asia Writ Small," an interdisciplinary conference (with Dan Gold, Asian studies, Cornell University; Ann Gold, anthropology, Syracuse University; and Carol Babiracki, art and music histories, Syracuse University). Support from the NRC Syracuse-Cornell South Asia Consortium funded by U.S. Department of State, Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, and CRP (2018)
• "Community-Engaged Research in the Nilgiris Biosphere Reserve," Engaged Cornell, Advancing Undergraduate Research grant to fund a post-doctoral fellow and undergraduate research. PIs: Wolf and Stolzfus; Co-PIs: Kudva and Willford (2016–17)

Exhibitions and Presentations (Selected)

• "Work in Progress, Water and Waste in the Nilgiris," French Institute of Pondicherry, Puducherry, India (June 2017)
• "Small City Urbanization, Two Indian Case Studies," Center of Urban Studies and Urban Planning, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (April 2017)
• "The Future of Cities," A presentation with George ‘Mac’ McCarthy, president, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, New York (August 2016)

Publications (Selected)

• Miraftab, Faranak, and Neema Kudva. Cities of the Global South Reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2015.
• Steven Wolf, Neema Kudva, Anita Varghese, Andrew Willford, Snehlata Nath, Pratim Roy and Rebecca Stoltzfus. "Slow conservation in the Nilgiris Field Learning Center: an integrative model of education, research, and practice." Current Conservation. 2018 (forthcoming).
• Kudva, Neema. "The Future City: Critical Interventions for Equity, Debate 3," in Informal Urbanisms: Emergent Approaches to Urban Transformation, ed. Kyle Farrell, from "Debates on Urbanism," series ed. Tigran Haas, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. Helsinki: Opus Liberum, 2018 (forthcoming).
• Neema Kudva. "Small Cities, Big Issues: Indian Cities in the Debates on Urban Poverty and Inequality" in Faranak Miraftab, Ken Salo and David Wilson eds. Cities and Inequalities in a Global and Neoliberal World. London and New York: Routledge 2015.
• Neema Kudva. "Planning Mangalore: Garbage Collection in a Small Indian City," in Gavin Shatkin ed. Contesting the Indian City: Global Visions and the Politics of the Local. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell 2013.