SGSD students and staff in India

Sophie Vonholm (4th year Geography and Management student), Iga Jozefiak (4th year Geography and Sustainable Development student) and Professor Bill Austin (former Head of School) visited India in January.

Sophie and Iga took part in a new internship programme to explore Sustainability in Fashion, generously supported by the father (Anish Tandon) of an alumna. They spent a week in Gurgaon, Delhi learning about the textile industry.

Bill’s visit to India was funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund, which led him from Delhi to the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu where he caught up with British Council visiting scholar (Gunasekaran) and his colleagues at Annamalai University. The project will develop an understanding of India’s Blue Carbon resources, with a focus on mangrove ecosystems, which Bill describes as “extraordinary, exotic and simply amazing” habitats! We are looking forward to a return visit from colleagues in India to St Andrews and SGSD in May this year, with a follow-up fieldwork campaign in India with SGSD students in January 2020.

Sophie, Iga and Bill caught-up in New Delhi at the end of the trip and were entertained to lunch by Deyvin Datwani (first year SGSD student) and his family – a number of current St Andrews students and their families attended a wonderful roof-top lunch, before touring the nearby Gandhi Museum.