Assistant Professor of Sociology in Social Justice & Human Rights, Arizona State University, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Education

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, August 2024
Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology, School of Arts and Science
Certificates earned: Urban Studies, Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies, and the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Comprehensive exams: Sociology of Climate Change & Environment and Labor & Migration.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, May 2019
Masters in Sociology, School of Arts and Science

New York University, New York, NY, Bachelor of Arts, College of Arts and Science, May 2015
Majors: Sociology and Urban Design & Architecture Studies

Co-visioner, Climate and Community Hub
Global Human Rights Hub Executive Committee Member

Publications

Journal Articles

Raka Sen, Saleh Ahmed, Akter, Mahmuda.  2026. “Persistent Myths: Temporality, Everyday Adaptations and Arrested Mobility in the Sundarbans.” Sociology of Development. doi: 10.1525/sod.2026.2872018

Raka Sen, Falzon, Danielle, Rawnak Jahan Ranon and Douwe van Schie. 2026. “Adaptation Dynamics: The Rolling Waves Caused by Development Timelines on the Ground.” Climate and Development. doi: 10.1080/17565529.2026.2620541

Falzon, Danielle and Raka Sen. 2024.”A call for a sociology of adaptation” Sociological Forum. doi: 10.1111/socf.12998

Sen, Raka. 2023. “Salt in the Wound: Embodied Everyday Adaptations to Salinity Intrusion in the Sundarbans.” Ecology and Society 28(2). doi: 10.5751/ES-14037-280210.

Castro, Brianna, and Raka Sen. 2022. “Everyday Adaptation: Theorizing Climate Change Adaptation in Daily Life.” Global Environmental Change 75:102555. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102555.

Cohen, Daniel Aldana, J. Mijin Cha, Nick Graetz, Aaryaman Singhal, and Raka Sen. 2022. “Securing Climate Justice Federally: A Political Economy Approach to Targeted Investments.” Environmental Justice env.2022.0047. doi: 10.1089/env.2022.0047.

Manuscripts in preparation: 

Sen, Raka. Under Review. “Adaptation Labor: Gender, Work, and Climate Change in the Sundarbans.” 

Pant, Surabhi & Raka Sen. De-colonizing Climate Change From Ground-up: Labor as Critical Method for Ontological Plurality.

Book Reviews:

Sen, Raka. 2022. “Book Reviews: The Human Planet: How We Created the Anthropocene.” Environment and Society 13(1):175–94. doi: 10.3167/ares.2022.130111.

Sen, Raka. 2019. “Book Review: Climate Leviathan: A Political Theory of Our Planetary Future.” Communication and the Public 4(1):84–86. doi: 10.1177/2057047319836920.

Editorial:

Sen, Raka. 2019. “Hungry Tides, Salty Lives.” Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved July 31, 2023 (https://archive.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2019/07/30/hungry-tides-salty-lives).

Sen, Raka. 2018. “The Hungry Tides in Gabura.” Dhaka Tribune. Retrieved July 31, 2023 (https://archive.dhakatribune.com/tribune-supplements/tribune-climate/2018/07/19/the-hungry-tides-in-gabura).

Teaching Experience

Fellowships and Awards

2026-27 American Council for Learned Societies Fellow
2023-24 Center for Advanced Study of India Sobti Family Fellow
2022-23 Teece Research Fellowship Award
2021 Center for Advanced Study of India Summer Research Fellowship
2021 Gertrude and Otto Pollak Summer Research Fellowship
2020-21 EnviroLab Coordinator
2020-21 Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Fellowship
2019-20 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Academic Year Fellowship
2019 Center for Advanced Study of India Summer Research Fellowship
2019 #ResearchforChange Grant, MAXQDA
2019 Gertrude and Otto Pollak Summer Research Fellowship
2019 Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Summer Fellowship
2017-2018 Lynne & Michael Tarnopol Graduate Fellow
2018 Gertrude and Otto Pollak Summer Research Fellowship
2018 Visiting Researcher, Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University
2018 International Centre for Climate Change and Development Visiting Researcher

Presentations

August 2026 De-colonizing Climate Change From Ground-up: Labor as Critical Method for Ontological Plurality with Surabhi Pant, New York, NY
August 2025 Organizer, Sociology of Climate Change Mini Conference, American Sociology Association, Chicago, IL
March 2025 Emotional Adaptation Labor, Eastern Sociological Society, Boston MA
November 2024 Anthropology of Climate Change: Praxis, Roundtable presentation at the American Association of Anthropology, Tampa, FL
October 2024 Uncertain rains and salt tolerant rice: how cultivating rice in the Sundarbans is reshaping social structures, Sociology of Development Conference, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC
August 2023 Salt in the Wound, American Sociological Association
February 2023 Everyday Adaptations: Provocations on Salinity Intrusion, Eastern Sociological Society
October 2022 Solving Climate Change, The Problem Solving Workshop at Northwestern University
October 2022 Transboundary Issues in the Sundarbans, The 5th annual CSD Conference on Sustainable Development at the Bangladeshi Center for Sustainable Development
May 2022 Everyday Adaptations and Ethnographic Research in the Sundarbans, Ramakrishna Mission University Kolkata
October 2021 Everyday Adaptations, Penn Center for Advanced Study of India
August 2021 Everyday Adaptations, American Sociological Association, with Brianna Castro
July 2021 Global Environmental Justice, Penn Social Justice Research Academy
June 2021 Adaptation Labor, SDI Workshop on Everyday Adaptations to Climate Change
May 2021 Climate Change & The Carceral State, Arts + Environmental Justice Symposium by Mural Arts, with Emma Glasser, Elsa Wefes-Potter, & Jane Robbins Mize
March 2021, Adaptation Labor, EnviroLab Conference on Placing, Graduate Student Conference (Organizer and conference participant)
September 2020 Climate Change & The Carceral State, Penn Climate Week, with Emma Glasser, Elsa Wefes-Potter, & Jane Robbins Mize
August 2020 Adaptation Labor, American Sociological Association, San Francisco (cancelled due to COVID 19)
February 2020 Adaptation Labor, Miniconference on Care, Eastern Sociology Society
January 2020 Adaptation Labor, The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies Colloquium October 2019 Adaptation Labor, Culture, Ethnography, Inequality Workshop, University of Pennsylvania October 2019 Adaptation Labor, Sociology of Development Conference, Notre Dame October 2019 Adaptation Labor, South Asia Conference, University of Wisconsin Madison
July 2018 Special Presenter, Global Change Programme, Jadavpur University
April 2018 Theorizing Wetlands, Graduate Research Symposium in Penn Anthropology            December 2017 H O L D I N G | a practice in wetness, Design in the Terrain of Water, Fall Exhibition hosted by Anuradha Mathur