K. J. Joy has a Master's degree in Social Work from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. He has been an activist-researcher for more than 20 years and has a special interest in people's institutions for natural resource management both at the grassroots and policy levels. His other areas of interests include drought and drought proofing, participatory irrigation management, river basin management and multi-stakeholder processes, watershed based development, water conflicts and people’s movements. He has worked with Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samithi (BGVS), New Delhi in its watershed development and resource literacy programme. He was a Visiting Fellow with CISED, Bangalore for a year and was a Fulbright Fellow with University of California at Berkeley. For the last 10 years Joy’s research shifted to water conflicts and has published several books and articles related to conflicts.
Pratima Medhekar
Admin
Pratima Medhekar is associated with SOPPECOM since 1991 and she has been managing the daily administrative duties since then. More lately, she specifically handles all the administrative work of the Forum’s activities. Apart from the administrative work, she helps to coordinate workshops, training programmes, seminars and data analysis of the Forum’s work. Pratima holds a BA degree from the Gujarat University.
Shruti Vispute
Consultant Researcher
Shruti was fully engaged with SOPPECOM from 2004 to 2010 and since then continues to contribute as a Consultant Researcher to the work of the Forum. She is currently a PhD Fellow at the University of Leeds, UK. She holds BA in Political Science from Fergusson College, Pune and MA in Environmental Politics from School of Politics, International Relations and Environment at University of Keele, UK and M. Phil. in Political Science from University of Pune. Her research arenas explore the phenomenon of water conflicts in India, environmental activism especially around water issues, gender issues in water sector and development politics in the global South.
Sarita Bhagat
Research Associate
Sarita Bhagat holds a Masters’ degrees in Sustainability Sciences from Lund University, Sweden and Environmental Sciences from University of Pune. Her thesis work includes the study and development of policies and market mechanisms of the organic dairy sector in Sweden, from a sustainability perspective. She has experience of conducting workshops at village and state level, conducting rapid EIA. She completed her graduation from Fergusson College Pune in Zoology and Biotechnology. In the past, she worked as a research assistant at Gomukh in documenting the Integrated Project Planning for the Wainganga sub-basin. Her major interest lies in environmental governance, sustainable development and policy analysis, bio-energy, behavioural change. She currently works as a Research Associate at SOPPECOM, for the theme Right to Water and Sanitation for the Forum.
Neha Bhadbhade
Research Associate
Neha Bhadbhade has a Ph.D degree in Biosytems and Agricultural Engineering from the Oklahoma State University, USA. Her main subjects of interest are hydrology, surface water management and Low Impact Development. At Oklahoma State University, she worked on various project associated with urban storm-water runoff. Her doctoral dissertation included the development of a mathematical flocculation model to control sediments in storm-water runoff from construction sites. She also received her Master’s degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the same university. She is currently working as a Research Associate for analyzing the e-flows in the Mahanadi-Hasdeo river basin under the Forum for Policy Dialogue on Water Conflicts in India.
