My main research interests are in the history of gender, sexuality, households and family in colonial north India. In 2019, Cambridge University Press published my first monograph, Governing Gender and Sexuality in Colonial India: The Hijra, c. 1850-1900 (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/governing-gender-and-sexuality-in-colonial-india/200A4682A894AB7136CF0463F12C2687#fndtn-information). This book, the first in-depth history of the Hijra community, explored the colonial and postcolonial governance of gender and sexuality and the production of colonial knowledge. Governing Gender and Sexuality examined the criminalisation of Hijras and other gender non-conforming people under colonial law and their marginalisation by middle class Indian gender politics.

As a part of my research on histories of gender and the household, I have explored the history of slavery in northern India, as well as histories of childhood. My research has appeared in Modern Asian Studies, Gender & History and Asian Studies Review, among other journals.

I am currently working on a book project, provisionally titled 'Gendered Margins: Intimacy, Labour and the "Criminal Tribes" in Colonial India.' This project brings together approaches from gender and sexuality history, family history, legal history and labour history. 'Gendered Margins' builds upon my research on the gender history of communities designated as "criminal tribes," which grew out of a Tier 1 research grant on gender and caste.

I teach courses on gender history, South Asian history, colonialism, Indian Ocean slavery, historiography and archives. I have also supervised graduate and honours (FYP) students on these themes, especially in South Asian and Southeast Asian history.