Ashok Gurung
Ashok Gurung serves as a Board of Director for JFP. He is a dedicated founding member of the Just Futures Pahal (JFP) Board of Directors, focusing on questions related to caste, gender, sexuality, dignity, equity, and sustainability. Previously, he held the position of Associate Professor in the Julien J. Studley Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School in New York City. Ashok was also one of the founding directors of the India China Institute at The New School (2005-2019), where he played a pivotal role in establishing and managing research, resource mobilization, and convening public conversations with prominent academics in China, India, the USA, and various Asian countries.
Ashok has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on international development managment, social justice politics, and capacity building at The New School and Columbia University. He collaborated with young scholars and activists from the Dalit community in South Asia to teach a graduate course titled “Politics of Dignity and Equity: Rethinking Caste Globally” at The New School. In October 2019, Ashok hosted the fifth international conference on the “Unfinished Legacy of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar – Dalits in Global Context: Rethinking Gender and Religion” at The New School in New York City. This conference brought together over 25 emerging scholars and leaders from the Dalit community for intensive conversations with globally renowned scholars such as Shailaja Paike, Sukhdeo Thorat, Lucinda Ramberg, Gayatri Spivak, Anupama Rao, Sudipto Kaviraj, Vamsi Vakulabharnam. The event also marked the launch of a new group of Global Dalit Changemakers addressing caste-related issues from a global perspective. Collaborating with Sunaina Arya, Ashok guest co-edited “Legacy of Gender and Caste Discrimination,” Vol. 1, No. 2 (October 2020) for CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion published by Brandeis University in the USA.
In his varied professional work over three decades, he served as a program officer for the International Fellowships Program at the Ford Foundation in New York City - a significant global leadership initiative focused on nurturing talented leadership from underrepresented communities from 22 countries worldwide valued at $280 million. Additionally, he engaged in diverse community-based applied research and development projects in rural Nepal. He also served as a Steering Committee member of the Himalayan University Consortium at ICIMOD, Nepal. He holds an advanced graduate degree from Columbia University in New York City, a BA in International Service and Development from World College West in California, and a Certificate in Norwegian Culture and Society from the University of Oslo in Norway. Within JFP, Ashok plays an active role in strategic programming, institutional strengthening, teaching, and fostering global collaborations on a pro bono basis. Particularly, he is committed to adapting innovative collaborative frameworks to support the primacy of Dalit women as the next generation of knowledge producers and thought leaders on caste-related questions.