Shubhada Maitra is Professor at the School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, with more than four decades of experience in the field of Social Work including teaching, research, field action, training and capacity-building. She was Dean, School of Social Work, TISS (2018-21) and Chairperson, Centre for Health and Mental Health (2007-12). She is currently a member of the Women and Gender Development Cell at TISS.

Her areas of engagement and expertise cover the broad domains of mental health, sexual and reproductive health, sexual and gender-based violence, sexualities, child and adolescent mental health, research and HIV/ AIDS with a focus on understanding the lived experiences of women, children and adolescents, and vulnerable populations. Shubhada’s work brings together lived experiences, socio-cultural realities and feminist social work theory to develop interventions that are culturally rooted within people’s contexts. Her work reflects an understanding of socio-structural determinants of health and mental health and inequities associated with marginalisation as a result of gender, sexuality and mental health.

At TISS, Shubhada leads Tarasha, a community-based recovery and reintegration Field Action Project she initiated in 2011 based on her research titled, ‘Status of Women in Mental Hospitals in Maharashtra’, commissioned in 2002 by the Maharashtra State Commission for Women. Tarasha incidentally was the first project in the country to operationalise the principles of legal capacity, empowerment, participation and inclusion for women living with mental illness. She is also Faculty-in-charge of Muskaan, the child and adolescent guidance centre of TISS, that offers clinical, promotive and therapeutic services for children, adolescents and their social networks, including interventions at the Family Courts of Mumbai, Thane and Pune.

She has made significant contribution to teaching and curriculum development that includes anchoring the first Winter Institute on ‘Mental Health, Poverty and Marginalisation’, in collaboration with George Warren Brown School of Social Work, St. Louis, USA; UKERI-India travel grant from British Council towards curriculum development on mental health with colleagues from University College London; Teaching Excellence bursary from University College London, Vice-Provost’s office to participate in the Grand Round and deliver a lecture on ‘Negotiating Gender and Caste in Higher Education’ hosted by UCL’s Cultural Consultation Services; teacher-exchange programmes in Finland and UK; and initiation of a Dual Degree in 2012 in Social Work and Mental Health with collaborations with Universities in Belgium.

She has led several national and international projects with funding support from The Ford Foundation, National Institutes of Health (USA), UN Women, USAID, Panos Institute, UK, International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), UN Women, Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Maharashtra State Commission for Women, Directorate of Health Services, Goa State AIDS Control Society and Bombay Communities Public Trust among others.

She has mentored students/ scholars pursuing Masters and PhD degrees from International Universities, namely, University of Leuven, Belgium and University of Connecticut, USA, and collaborated with faculty from Universities of Connecticut, Walden, Yale, Texas, and Tulane.

She has served on the editorial board of the Indian Journal of Social Work, India’s leading journal in the field and is a reviewer for several international journals. She has published in national and international peer reviewed journals. Her recent publications include ‘Women, Mental Illness and Human Rights: Operationalising UNCRPD on the Ground’ in Journal of National Human Rights Commission. She was a member of the Institutional Review Board, TISS and serves as external member on Internal Committees of Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the Workplace (POSH) of several corporate and government organisations.