Garima Goel, a final-year student of M.A. Political Science at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been selected as the Baillie Gifford Prize Fellow for the year 2016-17. As part of this she will study the MRes Contemporary India at the King’s College, London.
The fellowship, worth up to £30,000, provides full financial support to one student at the King’s India Institute for the research-track Masters programme that imparts advanced training to develop a thesis under expert supervision.
Garima is a trained journalist who worked with the Reuters news agency before joining the M.A. Political Science programme at University of Hyderabad in 2014. Last year she was one among the three students selected from the university to do a semester in transcultural studies at Heidelberg University, Germany.
Garima enjoys uncovering and answering questions related to Indian politics using open data and maps, which are increasingly available to researchers today. During her time at King’s she will work on ‘None of the Above’ (NOTA) voting patterns in India’s elections under the supervision of Dr. Louise Tillin. She intends to explore such understudied topics within mainstream political science in India through a career in research and teaching.