Raka Sen is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests span environmental, labor, urban, gender, migration, and development studies. Situated at the intersection of all of these subjects, Raka's work looks to understand how climate change and development is reshaping the everyday lives of local people in the Sundarban region of India and Bangladesh. Building off of ethnographic engagement and a longitudinal survey, she aims to challenge traditional notions of climate adaptation in lieu of theoretical frameworks that better encapsulate the lived realities of people facing climate changed right now. She has published on “Everyday Adaptations” to climate change, "Embodied Everyday Adaptations", and "Adaptation Labor". Her graduate research has been supported by the Fulbright Nehru Research Grant, Center for Advanced Study of India, FLAS, and the Gertrude and Otto Pollak Summer Research Fellowship.
A Colorado native, she holds a B.A. in Sociology, Urban Design & Architecture Studies from New York University. For more: rakasen.com
Climate change, labor, gender, rural, social resilience, cities, neighborhoods and disaster sociology
Instructor of Record, Environmental Sociology, Spring 2024
Instructor of Record, Introduction to Sociology, Summer 2023
Teaching Assistant Graduate Sociological Research Methods, Instructor: Melissa Wilde, Spring 2023
Instructor of Record, Introduction to Sociology, July 2021
Huntsman Program Teaching and Research Fellow, University of Pennsylvania, Instructor: Exequiel Hernandez, August 2020 - May 2021
Teaching Assistant, Media & Society, Pre Freshman Program, University of Pennsylvania, Instructor: Marcus Wright, August 2020
Senior Teaching Fellow, Social Justice Research Academy, University of Pennsylvania, July 2020
Teaching Assistant, Sociology of Mental Illness, Instructor: Jason Schnittker, Spring 2019
Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Sociology, Instructor: Onoso Imogene, Fall 2018
Salt in the wound: Embodied everyday adaptations to salinity intrusion in the Sundarbans,
Raka Sen, April 2023, Ecology & Society
Securing Climate Justice Federally: A Political Economy Approach to Targeted Investments
Daniel Aldana Cohen, J. Mijin Cha, Nick Graetz, Aaryaman Sunny Singhal, and Raka Sen, Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, October 2022, Environmental Justice.
Everyday Adaptation: Theorizing climate change adaptation in daily life
Briana Castro, Raka Sen, July 2022, Global Environmental Change
Hungry Tides, Salty Lives. Opinion Editorial, Dhaka Tribune, July 2019
The Hungry Tides In Gabura, Opinion Editorial, Dhaka Tribune, July 2018
Penn EnviroLab, Socio-Spatial Climate Collaborative, or (SC)2, and the Center for Advanced Study of India