The Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, Public and Urban Policy, Ph.D., 2028
Aratrika is a Ph.D. student specializing in Public and Urban Policy at The New School, New York. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur and a masters in Urban Ecological Planning from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Before joining The New School, she was involved with UN-Habitat in New Delhi and New York and served as a Research Associate at the School of Planning and Architecture in Bhopal. She has conducted fieldwork in India, the Netherlands, Norway, and China, fueling her passion for participatory urban governance and community engagement. Her current research lies at the intersection of climate migration and citizen science. She aims to craft a governance framework for climate migration and disaster mitigation that leverages citizen science to develop sustainable urban resettlement strategies. Her work delves into the complexities of post-resettlement risk creation, while focusing on preparedness and adaptive resilience, and tackling issues related to land, food security, livelihoods, and socio-political rights for vulnerable communities.
As the Protection Pathways for Climate-Related Displacement Fellow, Aratrika will support the Global Policy & Solutions’ Protection Pathways team in building upon IRC’s existing climate change agenda by researching the current policy landscape related to climate mobility. The Protection Pathways team works to develop actionable, scalable policy solutions related to pathways to protection, including resettlement, asylum, and integration, for IRC’s clients. Aratrika will scope existing policy debates and current or potential policy solutions to meet the needs of people whose displacement is related to climate change, and engage with internal and external stakeholders to better understand the policy environments in which climate displacement and mobility is being debated. She will review the breadth of current IRC programming to identify any existing programming relevant to this theme and compile an internal brief which will inform the team’s next steps in identifying policy solutions related to climate displacement and mobility.