Nilanjan Raghunath

Professor Nilanjan published a study which yielded findings on how individuals with a higher socioeconomic status (SES) are more likely to have jobs that provide opportunities for remote work to be performed, which allows for social distancing during the pandemic. Her study also explores how likely individuals with low SES will begin to break social distancing measures and be exposed to a greater risk of infection, but those with high SES are able to circumvent this problem.

Nilanjan is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. Her research interests include Sociology of Work and Social Stratification in the 4th Industrial Revolution. Within these major fields of Sociology, she has written about topics such as Technological Adaption, Social Credit Systems, Credential Capital, Crypto Currency, Millennial Workforce, Collaborative Teams, Disruptive Innovation, Skilled Migration and Algorithms .

She will be a Visiting Scholar at Cambridge (2022), and previously at MIT (2016-2017) and Oxford (2018).

She teaches Digital Sociology, Gender Sexuality and Society, Shaping Futures and Sociology of Social Networks and Social Capital. She won the Teaching Excellence Award in 2014. She is a AHE Fellow (2020) and has a higher education teaching certificate from the Harvard Derek Bok Center (2020).

She has numerous publications and media interviews, which can be found on her webpage.

Areas of expertise: Covid and social impact, future of work, automation, sociology, anthropology, women in STEM, bitcoins and policy and impact of algorithms on social life.

Selected media coverage:

On Technology, Sociology, and Millennial Talents, tfageeks, May 23, 2020.

Selected publications

Book

2021 Raghunath, Nilanjan. Shaping the Future of Work: The Power of Collaboration in Times of Disruption. McGill Queens University Press. Forthcoming.

Book Chapters

2019 Raghunath Nilanjan. “Automation versus Nationalism: Challenges to the Future of Work in the Software Industry”. In Smets, K., Leurs, K., Georgiou, M., Witteborn, S. & Gajjala, R. (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Media and Migration. London: SAGE, chapter 44.

2017 Raghunath, Nilanjan. “Minority Indian Communities in Singapore.” In The Singapore Ethnic Mosaic: Many Cultures, One People, edited by Mathew Mathews, 349 – 362. Singapore: World Scientific.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

2020 Raghunath Nilanjan. “Full Employment in the Cryptocurrency Economy: Lessons Learnt from Michael Polanyi.” Tradition and Discovery. The Polanyi Society Journal., 46, 2, 43-56.

2020 Raghunath Nilanjan. “China’s Social Credit System and its Impact on Credibility and Social Mobility of its Citizens,” Sociology Compass.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.12783

2020 Raghunath Nilanjan. “Technological Adoption as a Social Process in Food Centres in Singapore.” Science Technology and Society. Forthcoming.

2020 Raghunath Nilanjan, Tony Tan. “The Impact of Social Stratification on Morbidity during the COVID-19 Pandemic” International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy.

2017 Raghunath Nilanjan, Aye Myat Khine Win, and Fumiko Nishino. “Why is STEM Unattractive to Women? A Comparison of STEM Education in Japan and the United States”. Heinz Journal of Public Policy, 15, 2, 12-28.