Meet our new faculty member | Preeti Pratishruti Dash
April 24, 2021
We extend a warm welcome Preeti Pratishruti Dash who recently joined the University this term as Assistant Professor of Law. She is a graduate of the National Law University, Odisha and also a Fullbright Scholar from Harvard Law School. Previously, she has worked as a researcher with NLU, Delhi, and as a Summer Academic Fellow at Harvard Law School, where her research focused on unintended consequences of rape law amendment in India. At NLSIU, she hopes to use empirical research to influence pedagogy.
We asked her to share more about herself, her academic interests and her recent work.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
I am from Bhubaneswar in Odisha, which is where I completed high school. I studied law at National Law University, Odisha. After graduating in 2014, I worked briefly as an in-house counsel for a telecom multinational, before making a shift to work on human rights issues, particularly in the context of criminal laws. I completed my LL.M. in 2019 from Harvard Law School, where I was a Fulbright Scholar. A large part of my body of work has been with Project 39A at National Law University, Delhi, where I researched and published on issues of the death penalty, sentencing, and sexual violence.
What are your main areas of interest? How did your interest in these areas begin?
I am interested in criminal law, constitutional law, and empirical methods to study these areas. While I had been interested in criminal justice always as a student of law, it was only while I was working on the death penalty at NLU Delhi that the magnitude of injustice perpetrated through legal institutions became evident to me. I saw first-hand the profound impact of the criminal justice apparatus on the lives of marginalized. I realized that there was a lot to do in the field, especially in terms of research, and that as a country, we needed to think beyond penal solutions. This drew me towards studying criminal justice issues more deeply during my LL.M. at Harvard and over the past couple of years, I have been deeply interested in exploring non-punitive responses to sexual violence.
Your thoughts on starting your teaching journey at NLS? What are your plans ahead?
I am excited to be part of the intellectual community at NLS. I think law school is a great time for students to explore different areas and I am looking forward to engaging with them at this crucial juncture of their lives. Through my pedagogy, I hope to help students understand how to approach the subject, which will hopefully help them become critical thinkers. I am also looking forward to pursuing my research interests and engaging with colleagues on different aspects of criminal justice policy.