Mitra Sharafi is Professor of Law and Legal Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where she is affiliated with History. She is a legal historian of South Asia, and holds degrees in law (BA Cambridge, BCL Oxford) and history (BA McGill, PhD Princeton). Her first book, Law and Identity in Colonial South Asia: Parsi Legal Culture, 1772-1947 was awarded the LSA’s 2015 Hurst Prize. She is currently working on her second book project, “Fear of the False: Forensic Science in Colonial India” as a Davis Center fellow at Princeton’s History department (fall 2018) and an ACLS Burkhardt fellow ’18. Her research interests include: the history of the professions and expertise, law and religion, law and minorities, legal pluralism, legal consciousness, the history of science and medicine, colonialism, and the history of law books. Sharafi’s research has been recognized by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. She hosts the South Asian Legal History Resources and Stationary Empire websites. She is also on Twitter (@mjsharafi) and posts regularly on the Legal History Blog. At the LSA, Mitra Sharafi is a co-founder and organizer of the South Asia CRN 22 (since 2005), and she organized an IRC (2006-8) that led to the publication of a special forum in the Law and History Review (28:4, 2010). She has been on multiple LSA committees, including the International Prize Committee (for 2014 prizes), the Hurst Book Prize Committee (for the 2015 award), the Program Committee (2016-17 for Mexico City), and the International Affairs Committee (2018-19). As a trustee, Mitra Sharafi would be particularly interested in finding ways to provide greater support for active CRNs and in making the annual conference (given its size and cost) more accessible to graduate students, international scholars, and first-time conference-goers.

Twitter: @mjsharafi