I am Charrlotte, a PhD candidate in Human Geography at Freie Universität Berlin. I grew up in a cozy little city in central Tamil Nadu called Trichy. I hold an Integrated Masters in Development Studies from the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras (IIT-M) and worked in various research and policy think-tanks from 2016 to 2021, before re-entering academia. I find that my prior life and work experiences play a crucial role in grounding my research interests and academic practice.

For my dissertation, I study the processes and politics of greening Coimbatore city in India, to delineate a lively political ecology of urban forests. My fieldwork traces afforestation projects and the ways in which it reorders relationships between humans, trees, and other beings, in a space activated by modalities of entrepreneurial urbanisation and more-than-human agencies. I aim to bring together stories of human and more-than-human aspirations in uneven landscapes and their contested politics of place, bringing disparate bodies of work from urban studies and political ecologies into conversation.

I am also part of the Berlin University Alliance funded project: Human Health & Multispecies Cohabitation on an Urban Planet. I am always on the look-out for authentic conversations with fellow researchers.