Sunil Amrith

Sunil Amrith was born in Nairobi, Kenya, to Indian parents. He spent his childhood in Singapore and later earned a PhD in history from the University of Cambridge. In 2015, Amrith moved to the United States to become a professor of South Asian studies at Harvard University.

Amrith is now the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, where he also serves as the Henry R. Luce Director of the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and as vice provost for international affairs. His work explores migration in South and Southeast Asia, including its role in shaping contemporary social and cultural dynamics and its relationship to environmental change.

“My personal experience of the region has, in a sense, come from observing the constant connectedness between India and Southeast Asia. But when I began studying Indian history at university, I found an absolute disconnect — there was no mention of Southeast Asia,” he told Pacific Standard. “I was struck immediately by how profoundly national and colonial borders have shaped the way professional historians do their work.”

Amrith is the author of several books, including The Burning Earth, a finalist for the 2025 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and Crossing the Bay of Bengal, which received the American Historical Association’s John F. Richards Prize. His honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, the Toynbee Prize, the Fukuoka Academic Prize, and the Dr. A. H. Heineken Prize for History. In 2024, he was elected an International Fellow of the British Academy.

Photo by Stephanie Anestis and Yale University. Published June 2026