Vandana Chaudhry

Vandana Chaudhry is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Work at the City University of New York – College of Staten Island. Dr. Chaudhry joined CSI in 2012 after completing her PhD in Social Work and Disability Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on disability in the Global South, digitalization, neoliberal governance, disability justice, and culturally competent practices. Her multi-year ethnographic work explores disability at the nexus of digitalization, development, globalization, and the politics of subject-formation in India, through the examination of digital disability pensions, microfinance and community-based approaches. Her scholarship offers analysis of how big data, algorithmic regimes, and biometric technologies are reshaping disability welfare systems, restricting access to government benefits, and in the process reconfiguring the category of disability.

Dr. Chaudhry has published widely across the disciplines of disability studies, social work, and interdisciplinary social sciences, with her work appearing in Disability and Society, International Social Work, and Qualitative Inquiry, among others. Her article “Living at the Edge: Disability, Gender, and Neoliberal Debtscapes of Microfinance in India” received the 2016 Affilia Award for Distinguished Feminist Scholarship and Praxis in Social Work. Her work has been supported by the Center for Democracy and Technology, Ford Foundation, National Science Foundation, and CUNY, among others. She also regularly provides expert opinion and consultation to disability policy and advocacy organizations such as the UN –Enable, various disability state agencies, and disabled peoples’ organizations locally and globally.