Sofia Juliet Rajan

Sofia Juliet Rajan is a Consultant at IIHS and is part of the Word Lab. She provides editorial and writing support for the Research and Practice projects at IIHS and helps in the production of high-quality publications. She collaborates closely with the TNUSSP and CWIS teams and has helped write and edit a diverse range of knowledge products, such as technical reports, case studies, conference papers, and practice and policy papers and briefs. She also assists teams across the institution in adapting their research and practice to a broader audience through public-facing writing that is accessible and reader-friendly. Sofia’s expertise also extends to conducting writeshops and training sessions for the IIHS teams. She teaches the Writing Skill Lab, Language Lab and Advanced Skill Lab at the Urban Fellows Programme. She also works with the team in planning the programming for City Scripts, the annual urban writings festival.

In 2022-2023, she was the co-investigator in the IIHS project, ‘Mental Health at the Margins’, a year-long study funded by the Wellcome Trust and Unbox Cultural Futures Ltd under the Bengaluru chapter of Mindscapes, showcasing hyper-local conversations about mental health and wellbeing and addressing the missing voices in the mental health discourse. This project looked at the complex intersectional relationships between (hyper) marginality and mental wellbeing from the perspective of Bengaluru’s sex worker community.

Prior to IIHS, Sofia worked as a journalist for 10 years in leading media organisations like The New Indian Express and The Hindu after a short stint in the corporate sector. In her journalistic career, Sofia’s work centred on civic issues and citizen activism in Chennai, with specific focus on sustainability, water and waste management and environment.