IGSD News
IGSD (Assistant)Professor receives substantial research grant for BREATHE project
Dr Hita Unnikrishnan has been awarded a substantial research grant by the British Academy following their International Interdisciplinary Research Projects Awards 2026.
Dr Unnikrishnan, an assistant professor within IGSD, received almost 拢300,000 towards her research project titled 鈥楤uilding Resilience through Equitable Action on Temperature, Heat, and indoor Emissions鈥� (BREATHE), which is being co-investigated by Dr Lavanya Suresh (Birla Institute of Technology and Science), Dr Manik Gupta (Birla Institute of Technology and Science) and Dr Deepshikha Batheja (One Health Trust).
The BREATHE project, which will be carried out over a period of two years, aims to investigate how historical and intersectional inequalities influence differential experiences of heat stress and indoor air pollution (IAP) among members of peri-urban households within the global south.
Working on the hypothesis that women and vulnerable family members within patriarchally-structured households are more likely to suffer from higher rates of heat stress and IAP (due to factors such as more time spent within the home and exposure to unclean cooking fuels), Dr Unnikrishnan and her co-investigators will be combining historical research with large household surveys, satellite data analysis and machine learning models in the Bidar and Chikkaballapur districts of south Indian Karnataka. The project will be pivotal to understanding existing barriers regarding equitable health outcomes and the gendered considerations of climate impact, demonstrating the social and health implications of global sustainability that our School鈥檚 research division works tirelessly to raise awareness of.
We congratulate Dr Unnikrishnan on her outstanding achievement. Watch this space for more updates on this project to come!