Malini Ranganathan

A Picture of Malini

PhD Student
Energy and Resources Group (ERG)
University of California, Berkeley
email: malini AT berkeley DOT edu
Welcome to Malini's Webpage! 

Research Interests
We are facing an urban century. Cities around the world are becoming more congested and unequal, and resources are being consumed at increasingly unsustainable rates. My current research concerns the social equity and environmental dimensions of metropolitan development. I am chiefly interested in the role of governance and planning in the provision of essential services and infrastructure in rapidly urbanizing cities in South Asia and Africa. My dissertation research is on Bangalore, India's information technology city plagued by severe deficiencies and inequalities in the quality and level of access to water, sanitation, energy, and public transit services provided to its citizens. I am particularly interested in how urban reforms, decentralization, and citizen participation affect processes of urban governance.

Education
B.A. Chemistry, Bard College, New York (1997-2001)
M.S. Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley (2003-2005)
Master's Project: Can Cooperatives Become Energy Producers? Challenges and Prospects for Efficient Cogeneration in India's Cooperative Sugar Sector
PhD Energy and Resources, UC Berkeley (2005-present)
Dissertation Project: The Politics of Governance and Infrastructure in a Globalizing Metropolis: The Case of Bangalore

Biography
My liberal arts and sciences education at Bard College in Annandale, NY, nurtured my appreciation for interdisciplinary studies, and, in particular, my curiosity in various dimensions of energy production and use. Following my undergraduate education, I worked at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi on rural energy, electricity reforms in India, energy efficiency in the built environment, and climate change policy. My experience at TERI provided a strong foundation to pursue further education on problems at the interface of energy and society. At Berkeley, I conducted Master's work on high efficiency bagasse (sugarcane waste) cogeneration in India through a UNIDO-UC Berkeley "Bridging the Divide" Fellowship.  After my Master's degree, I conducted research in Dakar, Senegal on power sector reforms and its impacts on the urban poor as a Center for Human Rights fellow. At the doctoral level, I have carried forward my interests in urban issues. I am currently a graduate student researcher with Berkeley's new Urban Sustainablity Initiative. For more details, please refer to my CV.   

Publications and Conference Papers

Journal publications

1.       Chaurey, A., M RANGANATHAN and P Mohanty. 2002. “Electricity Access For Geographically Disadvantaged Rural Communities—Technology And Policy Insights”. Energy Policy. (32) 1693-1705

2.       Prasad, R, M RANGANATHAN, P B Singh and I H Rehman. 2003.“How Community Participation Can Integrate Energy Transitions Into Rural Development—The Experience Of Four North Indian Villages”. The Journal of Energy and Development (28) 2.

3.       RANGANATHAN, M, R Prasad and PB Singh. 2002.“Participatory Approach For Linking Rural Energy Transitions And Developmental Needs In Uttar Pradesh, India”. Boiling Point (49).

4.       Kishore, VVN and M RANGANATHAN. 2002. “Book review on World Energy Assessment: Energy and the Challenge of Sustainability”. Current Science (83) 10.

5.       Chaurey, A, JN Gururaja, M RANGANATHAN, and YD Babu. 2001. “Energy For Sustainable Development: A Multi-Stakeholders Approach Towards New Partnerships For Concrete Actions”. Pacific and Asian Journal of Energy 11(2).

Conference papers and other technical reports

6.       RANGANATHAN, M. 2006. “Understanding the Link Between Tenure and Urban Services for the Urban Poor: Case Studies from Senegal and India”. Paper accepted for presentation at the Breslauer Graduate Student Symposium, April 14-15, 2006. Available at http://www.dcrp.ced.berkeley.edu/breslauer/

 7.       RANGANATHAN, M, B Haya., S Kirpekar. 2005. “A Sweet Choice for Power? Evaluating Climate Change Financing for Sugar Mill Cogeneration in India”. Bridging the Divide Report. Available at http://groups.haas.berkeley.edu/unconference/research_biomass.html

 8.       RANGANATHAN, M and E Reynaers. 2003. “Enabling Environments For Technology Transfer”. Technical paper prepared for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Secretariat. Available at http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/tp/tp0302.pdf

 9.       Chaurey, A and M RANGANATHAN. 2003. Enhancing Electricity Access Through Distributed Generation Based On Renewable Energy. A TERI policy discussion paper. Available at http://static.teriin.org/seminar/electricity.pdf