Education

Ph.D. (with Distinction), Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, Camden 2016-2022.
Dissertation: Clean Bodies in School: Children’s Relational Experiences With Discourses Of Hygiene In Tamil Nadu, India
Trainee, Intensive Teacher Training, Madras Dyslexia Association, Chennai (Feb-Mar 2015)
Integrated 5-year MA: English Studies (minor in Economics), Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras 2008-2013

Research Experience

Assistant Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, 2025 - Current.
Visiting Scholar, Institute for Research on Women, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, 2024-2025.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Public Health Sciences, University of Chicago, 2022-2024.
Project: Interdisciplinary study of bicycling experiences and infrastructure in cities in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (Pathways to Equitable Healthy Cities global partnership, funded by Wellcome Trust)
Graduate Assistant (Research and Teaching), Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University, Camden, 2016-2021.
Project/Research Associate (Government Education for All Scheme), IIT Madras, 2015-2016.

Area of Research

Childhood Studies
Health and Environment
Gender
Urban Geographies
Visual and Material Culture
Ethnography and Participatory Research
Qualitative and Mixed-methods research

Fellowships / Awards

• Rutgers Institute for Research on Women Fellow 2020-2021 towards seminar on ‘Knowing Bodies: Science and the Sex/Gender Distinction’.
• David Sengstack 2020-2021 and Marsh-Gillette 2019-2020 Fellowships for Childhood Studies.
• Presidential Graduate Fellowship 2016-21, Rutgers University.
• Young India Fellowship (2013-2014), International Foundation of Research & Education, New Delhi.
• National Eligibility Test (NET) for Lectureship, UGC, India, - English (Mar 2013) & Education (Aug 2015).

Book Chapters

1. "A Case for Lazy Bicycling" in "Emergent Conversations: Sustainable Urban Mobility in India, PoLAR Online Emergent Conversation 23" curated by Shivani for Political and Legal Anthropology Review (2025). https://polarjournal.org/2025/07/23/a-case-for-lazy-bicycling/
2. (Kathleen C Riley, Smruthi Bala Kannan, Stacy S.Klein, Ellen Malenas Ledoux, Basuli Deb, and L. Amede Obiora) "Skin and Screen: A Collaborative Take on Touch in the Time of COVID" in Sarah Tobias and Arlene Stein edited Public Catastrophes, Private Losses. Rutgers University Press. (2025)
3. "Making Rasam by the Eye during Uncertain Times". Gastronomica. 20 (3) pp. 41-42 (2020) DOI:10.1525/gfc.2020.20.3.41. [Reflection article]
4. "Collaborations Across Global North-South: Considering Opportunities and Challenges" with Rashmi Kumari. NEOS. 12 (1) (2020) [Commentary]
5. "Provision Rights" in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies (4). pp. 1307-1309. (2020) DOI:10.4135/9781529714388.n483
6. "Protection Rights" in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies, (4). pp 1304-1306. (2020) DOI:10.4135/9781529714388.n482
7. "On weaving an inter-school inclusive event" with Kaamya Y. Sharma in Milind Brahme, M Suresh Babu, and Thomas Müller edited Inclusion in School Education in India: Concepts, Methods, and Practice, pp. 203-212, Mosaic books, New Delhi. (2018)

Journal Articles/Chapters/Essays

1. "Hygiene, Sanitation, and Childhoods in South Asia" for Oxford Bibliographies in Childhood Studies. [forthcoming]
2. "Plastics, children, and health—Who cares?" American Anthropologist. 126: 703-706 (2024) DOI:10.1111/aman.28011
3. "Clean Bodies in School Uniform: childhood and media discourses of cleanliness in Tamil Nadu, India". in Divya Kannan and Anandini Dar edited Childhood and Youth in India: Engagements with Modernity (Studies in Childhood and Youth), pp. 101-122, Palgrave Macmillan (2023)
4. "Clean bodies in School: Spatial-material discourses of children’s school uniforms and hygiene in Tamil Nadu, India" Children’s Geographies. 20 (6): 803-817 (2022) DOI:10.1080/14733285.2022.2059341

Literary

1. Wind Sketching. (Poetry Anthology) Writers Workshop, Kolkata. (2012) ISBN: 9789350450321

Working Papers

1. Kannan, Smruthi B., Rahul Goel, Ernest Agyemang, Zahidul Quayyum, Srishti Agrawal, Anisur R. Bayazid, Jonathan Anjaria, et al. 2024. "Bicycling in the Cities of Low- and Middle-income Countries: An Exploratory Mixed-methods Study in Four Cities." OSF Preprints. November 20. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/6qgh8
2. Gupta, Mehul, Smruthi Bala Kannan, Rahul Goel, and Kavi Bhalla. 2024. "What is the future E-bicycles in Delhi: Exploratory Research in Urban India" OSF Preprints. December 12. https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/JXM8T

Conferences / Workshops / Dialogues (select)

1. Co-organizer, South Asia Cycles 2024 – workshop on the past, present, and future of bicycling, University of Chicago Center Delhi (Nov 2024) https://sites.google.com/view/southasiacycles/
2. Discussant, "Postcolonial Theories and Childhood Studies (A Conversation)" by García Gómez, D.C., Kannan, S.B., and Balagopalan, S. (2024). in N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood. Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool. April 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my2k-8n6u2g.
3. "Schooling, Health, and Environment: Adolescents’ Participation in Everyday Infrastructures" Moderator: Vijitha Rajan. Webinar Series on Contemporary Research on School Education in India. Comparative Education Society of India and Azim Premji University. Sept 27, 2024
4. Kannan, Smruthi Bala, Rahul Goel, Jonathan Anjaria, et al. "How do we research bicycling? Mixed methods for bicycling research in LMIC cities" at International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS), Thailand. July 26, 2024
5. Goel, Rahul, Smruthi Bala Kannan, Mehul Gupta, et al. "Centering electric bicycles in transport electrification: road safety as key to low-carbon, low-powered, and healthy transport in India" 15th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion (Safety 2024), Delhi. Abstract in Injury Prevention 2024; 30: A154-A155. DOI:10.1136/injuryprev-2024-SAFETY.370
6. "Caring through and Caring Against – Schoolchildren, Plastics, and Environmental Cleanliness in Tamil Nadu, India" at Chicago Tamil Forum 2024, the University of Chicago. May 23-25, 2024
7. "Bicycling in Low- and Middle-Income Countries’ Cities" at Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, the University of Chicago. April 16, 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF6nzW6vFeU
8. "Caring Infrastructures and Careful Selves: Experiences of Schooling and Cleanliness in Tamil Nadu" in panel titled "Young People and the Transit of Values: A Dialogue Between Anthropology and Childhood Studies", Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) Invited Panel, American Anthropological Association/CASCA Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada. November 2023.
9. "Messy files and new friendships: revisiting the data post-fieldwork" at Research Methodology and Academic Writing Series: Sociological and Anthropological Studies of Education in India (SASEI). Online. Sept 16, 2023.
10. "Clean bodies in School: On historical and political continuities in public health education projects" (Keynote Presentation). Workshop on bicycling in Low- and Middle-income countries. University of Chicago Center. New Delhi. July 19, 2023.
11. Panel Discussant, "Sociology of Childhood: Issues and Challenges" with Hia Sen and Anandini Dar. Doing Sociology. Online. May 25, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqqDC9RvLho
12. Panel Organizer, "Relationalities of care in youth and childhood geographies" American Association of Geographers 2022 Conference. Online/NY, USA. Feb-March 2022.
13. "Sanitation and Schools: On Spreading Ideals of Hygiene through Children in British Colonial India" with Panel "Sanitation and Medicine in British Empire." American Association for the History of Medicine conference. online. May 2021.
14. "Exploratory Mapmaking: a potential tool for environmental and spatial research with children" with Designing for Children with focus on ‘Play and Learn’ at IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, Mumbai. January 2021
15. Podcast Guest (2021), "Affect and Language", Mnemosyne: Podcast on Feminist Storytelling, Rutgers University.
16. Commentator and Rapporteur, ‘Educational Transformations in Post-Liberalisation India’, at Ahmedabad University, workshop funded by the Spencer Foundation. (Jan 2020)
17. "Play in transit: A Study of Urban Public Transport Spaces Used for Free Play", at the 9th Child in the City Conference, Vienna. Sept 2018. (Presented by co-author Aditi Agrawal)
18. "Rhetorics of Sanitation and the School Toilets" at the Association of Asian Studies conference: AAS-in-Asia, New Delhi. July 2018.
19. Organizing Team, the international conference on "Multi-Grade Multi-Level Methodologies and their Global Significance" funded by UNICEF and co-organized by IIT Madras and RIVER (Feb-March 2016)
20. "Politics by the Roadside: on political wall-lettering in Tamil Nadu". Typography Day-2013, IIT Guwahati. March 2013. URL: https://www.typoday.in/2013/spk_papers13/smruthi-bala-%20kannan-typographyday2013.pdf

Available on request