Profile

Uttara Narayan is conducting research to understand the relationship between racial justice and energy demand in the UK, as part of CREDS. The objective of this research is to find ways to envision and achieve racial justice within the UK's energy demand landscape. This research draws upon interdisciplinary traditions ranging from energy justice, human geography to sociological approaches to understand energy use and racialisation.

Previously, Uttara worked for the World Resources Institute in India on energy governance. Her work involved incorporating political economy and social justice perspectives in clean energy transition interventions. This involved ensuring that decision-making instruments such as data and policy are made inclusive through the representation of multi-scalar stakeholder voices. She also worked on expanding India's interpretation of a just transition to consider the consequences of exclusion and injustice in utility-scale renewable energy installations.

Uttara holds academic degrees in Development Studies from IIT-Madras, and Public Policy from the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford. She pursued the latter with the help of the Chevening and Weidenfeld Hoffman Trust scholarships.

Publications

Poojary, V., Narayan, U. and Hingne, A. (2022) “A just transition to renewable energy: insights from India’s Pavagada Solar Park”, in Proceedings of the 28th International Sustainable Development Research Society Conference (ISDRS 2022). Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.
Devi, A., Narayan, U. and Mandal, T. (2018) Here comes the sun: residential consumers’ experience with rooftop solar PV in five Indian cities. World Resources Institute.
Padmanabhan, A. and Narayan, U. (2011) “To Be or Not to Be: Is India Prepared to Undertake Fuller Capital Account Convertibility?.”