Ritika Shah

Profile

Ritika serves as a Research and Editorial Assistant to the Vice-Principal (Education) at Queen Mary University of London. In this role, she supports Professor Marshall in shaping the discourse on leadership in higher education amidst an evolving regulatory, policy, and digital landscape. Contributing to publications on platforms such as HEPI and Times Higher, as well as chapters in various books, she has assisted Professor Marshall with her scholarship on advancing teaching excellence, expanding access to education, promoting inclusivity, and integrating technology in research and education. Ritika is currently working on the publication of the third edition of Strategic Leadership of Change in Higher Education. At Queen Mary Academy, she will continue to support external engagements and publications, contributing to shaping the future of the sector. 

Ritika has been engaged in public policy research since 2015, with her current responsibilities continuing her previous scholarship at various think tanks in Delhi, India, including the Centre for Civil Society and the Trayas Foundation. There, she contributed as a researcher with the aim of improving the regulatory landscape for micro enterprises, including street vendors and small-scale farmers, and enhancing educational outcomes and access for socio-economically marginalised groups. 

In addition to her research and editorial work in higher education, she writes on culture and identity, focusing on postcoloniality, subalternity and feminism. 

An alumna of the MSc programme in Theoretical Psychoanalysis from University College London, Ritika is currently completing her second master’s degree in philosophy through IGNOU (India) and holds an undergraduate degree in Economics (Honours) from the University of Delhi. 

Research

Research Interests:

Ritika has two primary areas of research focus. In her role as a Research and Editorial Assistant, she concentrates on leadership responses to facilitate change in higher education, particularly in aspects such as technological integration, inclusivity, internationalisation, and social mobility, with intersections in regulation and policy. This work builds on her previous research in education and public policy in India. 

The second area of Ritika’s research addresses issues in psychopathology, postcoloniality, identity, and feminism through the integrated perspectives of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and economics. Most recently, her scholarship has employed psychoanalytic concepts, such as ‘acting out’, to confront arguments about the lack of agential speech in gendered subalterns, with the aim of generating insights into how partial agential action manifests and, consequently, how we might respond to it. 

Publications

Public policy:

Journal articles 

Anand, B., Bedi, J., Narang, P., Shah, R., & Sudhakar, T. (2020, February 19). Executive discretion in regulating private schools in India: Evidence from Delhi. The Leap Blog. 

Anand, B., Shah, R., & Bedi, J. (2019). How does India fare on quality of regulation? Journal of Indian Law and Society. 

Anand, B., Narang, P., Shah, R., & Sabharwal, V. (2019). The ease of doing business on the streets of India. Entrepreneurship in Asia, 24(2), Fall 2019. [Online Supplement]. 

Research reports 

Shah, R. (2020). Rethinking K-12 assessment framework. Centre for Civil Society. 

 

Anand, B., Bedi, J., Narang, P., & Shah, R. (2019, October). What does a framework of regulatory quality and hygiene entail? Centre for Civil Society. 

News articles 

Shah, R. (2019, April 22). To improve learning levels, stop labelling schools. Hindustan Times. 

D'souza, A., & Shah, R. (2018, July 30). Reforms to save government schools in Karnataka. Mint. 

Psychoanalysis and philosophy:

Recent conference papers 

Shah, R. (2024, June 18). Speech and subjecthood: A dialogue between psychoanalysis and subaltern theory [Paper presentation]. Comparative Subalternities: Solidarity and Intersectionality across Disciplines, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom. 

Shah, R. (2024, February 2). The Burari deaths: Acting out as a mode of subaltern speech? [Paper presentation]. Open to Interpretation: Inaugural Postgraduate Conference, University College London, London, United Kingdom.

Shah, R. (2023, November 2). Psychoanalysis and subalternity [Paper presentation]. Cogitare Freud Sigut Philosophia, University College London, London, United Kingdom