Dr. Faisal Devji
Professor of History, University of Oxford, UK

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: 03rd January 2026 – 31st January 2026 (Projected)

Prof. Faisal Devji has completed PhD in Intellectual History at the University of Chicago in 1994. He was then elected Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, after which Prof. Faisal went on to run the graduate program at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, which included schools in Tajikistan and Iran. Returning to regular academic life in 2003, Prof. Faisal taught for two years at Yale as a visiting lecturer and another four at The New School for Social Research in New York as Associate Professor, arriving in Oxford as Reader in Modern South Asian History in 2009.

Research Interests

Prof. Faisal is interested in the intellectual history and political thought of modern South Asia as well as in the emergence of Islam as a global category. In his research he has focussed on the cultural and philosophical meanings of violence as much as the emergence of non-violence as a political project. Prof. Faisal is also very interested in the different ways in which the idea of humanity achieves political realty, particularly as the simultaneous subject and object of globalisation. His recent work deals with efforts to think beyond the nation-state and the inheritance of anarchism in the post- colonial world.

Dr.Adaora Osondu-Oti
Professor | Researcher | Gender and Development Expert

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: November 2024-January 2025

Adaora Osondu-Oti is a distinguished Professor of International Relations and Diplomacy at Afe Babalola University, Nigeria. She earned her PhD from Obafemi Awolowo University in 2014, focusing on Africa’s international relations, gender equality, and sustainable development. Osondu-Oti’s research interests include gender (in)equality, poverty, and Nigeria’s foreign policy, with numerous publications in these areas.

She has taught various courses, such as Gender Studies and Human Rights, and has supervised numerous undergraduate and postgraduate projects. Osondu-Oti has held significant roles, including Chairperson of the Sexual Harassment Prohibition Committee and founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Contemporary International Relations and Diplomacy.
A recipient of the Carnegie Scholarship and a research fellow at the Central European University, she is passionate about promoting gender equality and fostering global partnerships for sustainable development.
Her contributions to academia and advocacy for women’s rights have established her as a leading figure in her field.

Dr. David Anshen
Associate Professor, Department of Literatures and Cultural Studies, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA

Time of Visit: Autumn Semester, 2024
Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies

About:
Dr. David Anshen earned his PhD in Comparative Literature from Stony Brook University. Dr. Anshen’s related publications include “Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville: An Italian Neorealist, Science Fiction Fable about Hollywood” in Radical Fantasy: Italian Neorealism’s Afterlife in Global Cinema (2007) and “Out of the Depths and Through the Postmodern Surface: History and Class Figuration in Cameron’s Titanic” in the journal CineAction (2000). His article, “Famine, Caste, and Class in the novels of Bhabani Bhattacharya” has been accepted for the upcoming collection Representations of Indian Famine Literature edited by Dr. Shubhanku Kochar, which will be published in the Routledge South Asian Literature Series. His last monograph Marxist Literary and Cultural Theory (2017) was published by Black Swan Orient Press. He also has published on cinema and Television, as well as literary and Marxist theory.

Academic Engagement:
In the Department of English and Applied Humanities, KIIT School of Liberal Studies, David conducted two courses namely “Introduction to Film Studies” and “Historuography and Historical Literature.” Apart from that he delivered several lectures on Marxist Interpretation of Art and Narrativization of History. He is also one of the Advisory Board Members of the School and played an instrumental role in the formation of Centre for Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature (CCSCL).

Dr. Margaret Phillips
Professor of Legal Studies, University of Buffalo, USA

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: November 2024-December 2024

Margaret L. Phillips, J.D., is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Paralegal Studies program at Daemen University in Buffalo, New York, United States. Margaret started as the Director of the program in 2011 and the program achieved American Bar Association approval in 2017. Daemen’s Paralegal Studies program has both a B.S. program and a 21 credit Certificate program and has been ranked #17 in the nation.

Prof. Jen Webb

Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: November 2024-April 2025

Jen Webb is Distinguished Professor of Creative Practice at the University of Canberra, and Dean, Graduate Researh Office. She was the inaugural director of the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, and remains a core member of that Centre.

Her main research interest is the relationship between what Pierre Bourdieu termed ‘the field of cultural production’—the broad sphere of creative practice—and the social domain, including the political and sociocultural, the practical and the economic, the local and the global. Her current major projects investigate aspects of creativity, and creative production, and the creative producer, and she has been supported in this by several ARC Discovery projects, the most recent of which is So what do you do? Graduates in the Creative and Cultural Industries.

Dr. Romain Fohr

Professor of Scenography, Sorbonne Nouvelle, University, France

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: January 2025-April 2025

Romain Fohr is an associate professor at Sorbonne nouvelle university. He is leading an international group of investigation focussed on performing arts scenography. With multiple colleagues all over the word, he is working on analysing the differences of each area. Romain is an extremely active member of the LIRIS (Laboratoire International de Recherche sur les Images et la Scénographie) attached to the IRET (Institut de Recherche en Études Théâtrales – Sorbonne nouvelle).

Dr. Panchajanya Ghatak
Consultant Psychiatrist, Rampton Hospital, Nottingham, UK

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: December 2024-December 2025

Dr Ghatak’s speciality lies in dealing with extreme challenging behaviour, providing person- centred care within secure settings, and providing teaching on forensic learning disabilities to a wide range of professionals. Born and raised in Kolkata, Dr Ghatak is also a published author. His funny bone found expression in his debut book “Bilet er Diary” (Diary of England). He has acted in three Bengali films and regularly acts in various drama groups. He also serves as a priest for the Hindu community in the UK.

Dr. Magdalena Ścigała
Affiliation: University of Technology and Economics in Warsaw, Poland
Engaged School: School of Liberal Studies
Dates of Engagement: March 2025
Highlights:
• Assistant Professor and lecturer with dual specialization in psychology and management.
• PhD from University of Warsaw on managerial decision-making in complex situations.
• Over 20 years of academic and industry experience in employee motivation, recruitment, and change management.
• Active researcher with 25+ publications on organizational behavior, remote work, and cognitive bias in HR.
• Lecturer at SWPS University and consultant for talent acquisition and development.

Dr. Dibyadyuti Roy
Affiliation: University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Engaged School: School of Liberal Studies
Dates of Engagement: April 2024
Highlights:
• Tenured Assistant Professor and Programme Director for BA in Cultural and Media Studies at the University of Leeds.
• Leading global scholar in Critical AI Studies, Digital Humanities, and Postcolonial Cultural Theory.
• Former faculty at IIT Jodhpur and IIM Indore; holds a PhD in Cultural Studies from West Virginia University.
• Principal Investigator and co-investigator on major international projects, with awards from the NEH, University of Central Florida, and more.
• Editor, keynote speaker, and frequent contributor to conferences at institutions like MIT, Cambridge, Oxford, and the Turing Institute.

Benjamin Abtan
International Expert in Conflict Resolution, Intercultural Dialogue, Peacebuilding and Human Rights; Adjunct Professor at Sciences Po Paris and ESCP Business School, France

Engaged School: KIIT School Of Liberal Studies
Engagement Period: August 2026

Benjamin Abtan is an international expert working at the intersection of conflict resolution, intercultural dialogue, peacebuilding, human rights, and social inclusion. He holds a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University, along with graduate degrees from ESSEC Business School and Télécom ParisTech. He has advised and worked with international organisations and institutions including the United Nations, the World Bank, and Open Society Foundations. He is also the founder and former President of the European Grassroots Antiracist Movement (EGAM), a network comprising organisations across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

Abtan has extensive teaching experience and has taught courses and conducted workshops on resolving identity conflicts, shared society, international relations, and intercultural management for students from diverse countries. His academic and professional work focuses particularly on questions of identity, migration, democracy, racism, genocide prevention, and intercultural cooperation.

Research Interests
Conflict resolution; intercultural dialogue; language and identity; shared societies; peacebuilding; human rights; migration and refugee integration; racism and antisemitism; genocide prevention and remembrance; democracy and social inclusion; and intercultural management. These interests are reflected in his teaching, publications, and international policy and community-based work.

Academic Engagement:

During his visit to the School of Liberal Studies, KIIT-Deemed to be University, Benjamin Abtan conducted interactive workshops with students on language, identity, conflict, and social biases. The sessions encouraged students to critically examine the relationship between language and identity and to reflect on how cultural perceptions, prejudices, and biases can contribute to conflict as well as possibilities for dialogue and coexistence.

He also engaged with faculty members of the School of Liberal Studies in discussions on potential areas of academic collaboration. The discussions included possibilities for collaborative research projects, an edited academic volume, and the development of online courses to be offered through the KIITex platform. His visit thus provided an opportunity for meaningful academic exchange and opened avenues for future institutional collaboration between Benjamin Abtan and the School of Liberal Studies.