Bharat Jayram Venkat

Dr. Bharat Jayram Venkat is an Associate Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with joint appointments in the Institute for Society and Genetics, the Department of History, and the Department of Anthropology. He is affiliated with the UCLA Center for India & South Asia, the Program in Digital Humanities, the Urban Humanities Initiative, and the Luskin Center for Innovation.

• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (2014)
• M.A., Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University (2007)
• B.A., Cultural and Social Anthropology, Stanford University (2006)

His research spans science, medicine, climate, race, and design, with a focus on tuberculosis treatment in India and thermal inequality in a warming world. His work interrogates the limits of curative paradigms, the racialized production of climate knowledge, and the intersection of health with carceral systems and urban environments.

Bharat Venkat’s publications include At the Limits of Cure (Duke University Press, 2021; Bloomsbury India, 2022), which received the RAI Wellcome Medal, Edie Turner Book Prize, and Joseph W. Elder Prize. His current book project, Swelter: A History of Our Bodies in a Warming World, examines thermal inequality through historical and interdisciplinary lenses.

• NSF CAREER Award
• Berggruen Foundation Fellowship
• Howard Foundation Fellowship

He founded the UCLA Heat Lab, directing students on thermal inequality projects such as oral histories in Watts and occupational heat exposure studies. His mentorship was recognized with the Carole H. Browner Student Mentorship Award and UCLA’s Excellence in Educational Innovation Award.