Sofia Juliet Rajan

Consultant - Word Lab | srajan at iihs dot ac dot in

EDUCATION:

2011    MA, Communication in Journalism Osmania University Hyderabad, Telangana, India
2006    BCom, Computer Application Emerald Heights College Ooty, Tamil Nadu, India

 

Countries: India
States: Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka
Cities: Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Bangalore
Languages: English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam

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.

Teaching

  • Advanced Writing Skill Lab, Longform narratives, Urban Fellows Programme (UFP), IIHS
  • Non-academic writing, Eighth Annual PhD Workshop, IIHS
  • Non-Academic Writing, Tenth Annual PhD Workshop, IIHS

 

Training

  • What we talk about when we talk about plagiarism, Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) and Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS), IIHS
  • Writing effective reports, Solar Decathlon India, IIHS
  • Writeshop for UPAGrI Compendium, Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture as Green Infrastructure (UP-AGrI), IIHS
  • Writing reports and policy briefs,Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF), IIHS
  • Writing for Social Media, Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP), IIHS
  • Effective note-taking, Practice team (select staff), IIHS
  • Effective report writing, Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP) and Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS), IIHS
  • Effective Writing for Research Communication, Writing, Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS), (External)
  • Rajan, S. J. (2019, May 25). Is there a way beyond pedestrian subways and foot overbridges?. The Hindu.
  • Rajan, S. J. (2019, February 23) Find your way to public toilets with Google Maps. The Hindu.
  • Rajan, S. J. (2019, February 7) Do you want to join our hyperlocal history project? The Hindu
  • Rajan, S. J. (2018, November 30) Have you tried the Miyawaki method? The Hindu
  • Rajan, S. J. (2018, August 3) Have you read your rainwater manual? The Hindu.
  • Tamil Nadu Urban Sanitation Support Programme (TNUSSP)
  • Citywide Inclusive Sanitation (CWIS)
  • Urban and Peri-urban Agriculture as Green Infrastructure (UP-AGrI)
  • Land Records and Land Governance project
  • Transforming Education for Sustainable Futures (TESF)
  • Mindscapes: Mental Health at the Margins
  • Climate Change Local Adaptation Pathways (CLAPs)