Congratulations to Suman Mondal, Lambda Scholarship Foundation Canada Graduate Award Recipient

Established by the Lambda Foundation in 2022, the award is bestowed by the McMaster University School of Graduate Studies upon a first-year graduate student who identifies as a member of the queer or trans community and is Black, racialized, or Indigenous.

Lambda Foundation is grateful to Suman for this letter that details their success and plans for the future.

Dear Lambda Scholarship Foundation,

Thank you for bestowing this award on me. The monetary gift has taken some financial stress off me, aided in my first-year PhD studies, and, equally importantly, further validated my work. I truly appreciate an organization that is ensuring the well-being and success of (QT)BIPOC folks, especially those who are emerging scholars.

Currently, I am a first-year PhD student in the Sociology program at McMaster University.

My research revolves around the social, political, and legal implications of LGBTQIA+ Indians in progressive regions of India. My research interests include the sociology of gender and sexuality, political sociology, qualitative studies, and media analyses. In addition to my schoolwork, I also am a committee member at LGBT Youthline, where I work on a program that helps to create arts-based spaces for queer and transgender youth in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.

Alongside holding the important Lambda Scholarship, I am also the recipient of the prestigious Hooker Fellowship at McMaster University. I have an academic paper in the publishing process, which centres its research on the experiences of African refugee youth and their post-secondary/educational transition process. In addition, I am working on two other articles, one that looks at the construction of resistance by female-African-refugee-youth, and the other analyzes how the Indian news media works to construct claims and identities of LGBTQIA+ people in India (influenced by my MA thesis). I have had/will have the opportunity to present at conferences such as the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, Canadian Sociological Association, and Qualitative Analysis Conference.

I aspire to become a post-secondary educator who teaches gender, sexuality, and politics from a non-Western perspective.

Additionally, I want to continue to research the experiences and trajectories that many South Asian nations and their people (internally and in the diaspora) encounter so that more (QT)BIPOC voices are at the forefront in academia. Lastly, I hope that my prospective doctoral thesis is published as a book and describes the gender and sexuality of different regions in India. I thank Lambda for providing not only this financial assistance but also for showcasing my work and me.

Kind regards,

Suman Mondal (They/Them)