Nandita Badami

Nandita Badami is a Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG) in Berlin, where she contributes to the "Unknowing Environmental Crisis" Working Group. Her scholarly work bridges anthropology, the history of knowledge, and political philosophy within the institute's interdisciplinary framework.

Her academic credentials include:

• PhD in Anthropology, University of California, Irvine (2021)
• MA and MPhil in Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
• BA in Political Science, University of Delhi

Badami's research examines the political dimensions of industrialized energy resources, particularly sunlight within India's National Solar Mission framework, and investigates the conceptual evolution of "solution" in historical discourse. Her scholarship spans environmental history, energy politics, and the history of ideas, focusing on how technological solutions are framed within environmental crises through anthropological and philosophical lenses.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• Landaus Fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center, Munich

Prior to her MPIWG appointment, she held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Badami actively participates in the institute's "Unknowing Environmental Crisis" Working Group, fostering collaborative research on historical and philosophical approaches to contemporary environmental challenges, and presented her work on energy semantics in a January 2024 colloquium titled "Energy is an Empty Signifier" under Department II.