Trina F Vithayathil

Trina F Vithayathil is an Associate Professor of Global Studies at Providence College. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University (2014). Her research focuses on caste dynamics, urban inequality, and comparative political sociology. She has led three major grants including projects on urban caste theory funded by the Committee on Aid to Faculty Research and a National Science Foundation doctoral grant.

Her work explores caste-based residential segregation in India, census methodologies, and elite-state interactions in developing nations. Notable contributions include Recast(e)ing Inequality (2019) analyzing spatial caste segregation and Counting Caste (2018) examining bureaucratic deflection in caste politics. Her research has received significant attention, with over 60+ citations and media coverage in 22 outlets.

Vithayathil has collaborated with scholars like G. Singh and K.C. Pradhan on urbanization studies and co-authored work on rural labor in the Brazilian Amazon. Her grants (2013-2018) supported fieldwork exploring caste persistence and urban theory development.