Diva Sinha

Diva Sinha is a PhD candidate in the department of Development Studies at SOAS University of London. Her doctoral research, titled From Glaciers to Gridlines: Hydropower, Land Subsidence, Deforestation, and Biodiversity Loss in Uttarakhand’s Mountain Valleys, examines the multi-dimensional impacts of large dam development in the Indian Himalayas. She combines six frameworks in her research project: Political Ecology, Disaster Governance, Energy, Procedural, distributive, Recognition and Restorative Justice, frameworks along with GIS analysis, qualitative fieldwork, and visual observation to investigate how hydropower expansion and rapid urbanisation exacerbates environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, social displacement and amplifies disaster risk in Greater and Trans-Himalayan regions. Her work specifically focuses on the states of Uttarakhand, Ladakh, and Himachal Pradesh. Her research interests include energy transitions, marine and ocean conservation, climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, disaster governance, disaster risk reduction particularly in high mountain regions and biodiversity conservation. Her PhD research is supervised by Dr Giuseppina Siciliano and Dr Andrew Newsham.

Alongside her research, she worked as a Project Coordinator at the Research and Knowledge Exchange Department at SOAS, coordinating over 30 research projects at SOAS, supporting grant management, conferences, and research funding processes. She has also worked as a Research Assistant on SeedCorn funded climate adaptation projects and as an Intern for wildlife conservation organisations.