
CRRES Postdoctoral Scholar, 2020-2022
Vivek Vellanki was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES) and a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the School of Education at Indiana University. Following his fellowship with CRRES, Vivek accepted a position as an Assistant Professor in the School of Education. Vivek earned his PhD in Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education from Michigan State University. His scholarly and artistic work is centered on issues of migration, transnationalism, and youth identity/culture. He draws on visual methodologies and research-creation in order to question the boundaries between scholarly/creative work. Vivek’s dissertation examined the experiences/stories of immigrants and refugees in the U.S. using the photographic medium. He curated an exhibition titled, Do you have anything to declare?, featuring his dissertation work in the fall of 2019. He has worked with teachers and youth in India and the U.S. in exploring the role of the arts and the possibilities for envisioning the classroom as a site for exploration, play, and imagining socially just futures. At CRRES, Vivek’s work explores the relationship between photography, migration, and youth identity/culture through a collaboration with South Asian youth living in the area.