Dr. Soniya Munshi has been appointed, pending approval from the CUNY Board of Trustees, the new Interim Executive Director of the Asian American / Asian Research Institute. Dr. Munshi previously served as an associate professor of Ethnic + Race Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College/CUNY. She brings to AAARI her research and project experience specifically related to immigrant communities and Asian American Studies.
Dr. Munshi received her Ph.D. in Sociology with a Women’s Studies Certificate from the CUNY Graduate Center, where she is an affiliate faculty member in the Psychology program. Her research on the relationships between the carceral state, public health, gendered violence in immigrant communities, and women of color feminisms has been supported by the Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship, the NY Council for the Humanities, PSC-CUNY, and others.
Dr. Munshi’s work has appeared in publications including Scholar and Feminist Online, Feminist Formations, and CUNY FORUM: Asian American / Asian Studies. She was co-director of the NEH-funded project, “Building Asian American Studies across the Community College Classroom,” and co-coordinator of the AANAPISI Bridge Initiative, a collaboration between BMCC and Hunter College/CUNY to support the needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander students. She is currently a member of the CUNY Black, Race, and Ethnic Studies Initiative Council.
