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Kavitha Rajagopalan is Asian Media Initiative director at CUNY's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and a former senior fellow at Carnegie Council.
Rajagopalan has written and lectured extensively on global migration, urban immigrant communities, and social cohesion in diverse, pluralist societies. She is the author of Muslims of Metropolis: The Stories of Three Immigrant Families in the West, which was a finalist for the Asian American Literary Award, and worked as a journalist in the United States, India, and Germany, most notably as a columnist for PBS and Newsday. She has taught courses on global migration and writing at New York University's Center for Global Affairs and is the recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and the John J. McCloy Journalism Fellowship.
Rajagopalan leads the Emergent Cities Project at the World Policy Institute, where she is also a senior fellow specializing in migration and urban informality, and is a writer-in-residence at the CEJJES Institute for social justice in marginalized communities. She sits on the executive board of Unchained at Last, an organization dedicated to helping women leave forced and arranged marriages and was previously a research director at Kroll & Associates.
Rajagopalan received her MA in international affairs from Columbia University and her BA in international relations from the College of William & Mary.
Featured Work
JUL 15, 2020 • Podcast
Immigration & the Black Lives Matter Protests, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
How have conversations in the immigration rights community shifted since this round of Black Lives Matters protests started? In this new environment, what are some ...
AUG 27, 2019 • Podcast
The Chennai Water Crisis, Governance, & Media Narratives, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
Chennai, one of India's largest cities, is facing an ongoing water crisis due to drought and mismanagement. Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan explains how it got ...
MAY 1, 2019 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: Citizenship, Social Media, & the Indian Election, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan discusses the ongoing Indian election through the complicated lens of citizenship and explains the vast power of political organizing and social ...
APR 2, 2019 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: Venezuelan Refugees & Immigration Policies, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
With millions of Venezuelans fleeing the Maduro regime, what are the effects on Latin America and the Caribbean? What could or should the United States ...
MAR 21, 2019 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: The Christchurch Attack & Immigration Policies, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
A week after the horrific terrorist attack on two New Zealand mosques, Carnegie Council Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan discusses immigration policies and xenophobia in Australia ...
OCT 4, 2018 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: Statelessness & Ethnonationalism in India & the U.S., with Kavitha Rajagopalan
Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan explains the troubling situation in Northeast India near the border with Bangladesh, where millions of citizens could end up stateless. With ...
SEP 27, 2018 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: Refugees, from Utica to Uganda, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
As the Trump administration cuts refugee resettlement in the U.S. to its lowest number in decades, this population in other nations has exploded in ...
AUG 30, 2018 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: A Different Look at Immigration, with Kavitha Rajagopalan
Responding to an excerpt from a talk by Brookings Institution's William Galston, Senior Fellow Kavitha Rajagopalan and host Alex Woodson discuss immigration from a few ...
JUL 19, 2018 • Podcast
Global Ethics Weekly: Migration in the Age of "Zero Tolerance"
Today's discussions about immigrants and refugees are focused on the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy on the U.S.-Mexico border and the "migration crisis" ...
NOV 16, 2015 • Article
Why France Should Not Close Its Borders
Since September 11, 2001, both the U.S. and Europe have merged anti-terrorism strategies with immigration policy, and with little success.