Soumya is a Ph.D. Candidate in Architecture (History and Theory) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.  He has a Master's in Urban Design from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi, and a Bachelor of Architecture from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, Kolkata, India. 

His scholarly interests include neoliberal developmentalism, digital technocracy, Global South, and South Asia. His Ph.D. dissertation broadly explores the contested systems of architectural production in the context of urban India in the 21st century. He has presented his research at academic conferences, including the SAH, ACSA, and IASTE, as well as Ph.D. conferences at Georgia Tech, AA London, and UCLA. 

Soumya is an awardee of the Humanities Research Institute Graduate Fellowship for 2023-24 and a former recipient of the Illinois Distinguished Fellowship. He also received the Nicholson Fellowship to attend and earn a certificate from the School of Criticism and Theory, Cornell University, and noted his reflections here. 

Soumya loves teaching and has worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant for graduate-level history, theory, and design studio courses in Architecture. He is co-teaching a graduate design studio with architect Patricia Saldaña Natke, founding partner of UrbanWorks, Chicago. He has also assisted Plym Professor architect Mark Raymond for analog, a collaborative graduate design studio between the Illinois School of Architecture and Unit 13, Graduate School of Architecture, Johannesburg, South Africa. He has served as an external reviewer in various design studios in India, South Africa, and the USA.

You can reach him at soumyad2@illinois.edu or mailsoumyadasgupta@gmail.com  

Register for upcoming talk - https://calendars.illinois.edu/detail/779?eventId=33499646