Chayanika Shah, 2023-05-12

Chayanika Shah is a queer feminist and activist. Born on 1 September 1958, she is also an educator and has been involved in many autonomous women's rights movements in India since the late 1970s. Trained in physics at IIT Bombay, she taught the subject at K.J. Somaiya College at Mumbai for over two decades. She is well known for her work in feminist science studies, pioneering courses where science is explored in a critical way, using the lens of gender and sexuality. Shah was one of the earliest members of the Forum Against Oppression of Women, Forum Against Sex Determination and Sex Preselection (FASDSP), a coalition of many women's organisations. She is one of the earlier members of a queer collective called LABIA – A Queer Feminist LBT Collective which started as Stree Sangam in 1995. Shah's education, work and activism at the intersection of science, feminism and queer rights, has involved a critique of science's control over women's bodies and sexualities. Shah has published several essays and publications on topics of gender, science and feminism and is considered a critical voice in the field of feminism, queer rights and science.