Dr Nilanjan Raghunath

Lifelong Learning Visiting Fellow, Michaelmas term 2025

Biography and research

Dr Nilanjan Raghunath is a sociologist at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (HASS Cluster). She has held visiting appointments at Oxford, Columbia, Cambridge, and MIT, reflecting an internationally engaged career. Her research has been supported by the Fulbright Program, and other institutions. Dr Raghunath has been widely recognised for excellence in research, teaching, and public engagement. She contributes actively to mentorship and editorial initiatives that promote transdisciplinary social science, inclusion, leadership, and lifelong learning.

Her research sits at the intersection of sociology of work, technology, and organisation design, with a particular focus on the social dimensions of automation, trust, and human–AI collaboration. She investigates how social capital and credibility are redefined in AI-driven economies and how individuals and institutions adapt to technological transformation. She is the author of Shaping the Futures of Work: Proactive Governance and Millennials (McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2021), which analyses generational work values and proactive governance in the digital economy. Her forthcoming book on AI and Social Capital: (under contract) examines how AI systems mediate access to social and economic networks, visibility, and influence.

Dr Raghunath integrates organisational sociology research on AI with qualitative methodologies, encouraging critical narratives of technology through human-centred and socially reflexive frameworks that benefit both people and institutions.

An award-winning educator and Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK) her pedagogy emphasises critical thinking, reflective practice, and the cultivation of empathy and curiosity as foundations for responsible and creative innovation. A champion of lifelong learning, she views continuous education as essential to both intellectual fulfilment and employability in an evolving world of work and social engagement.

Working with Oxford Lifelong Learning

Whilst at Oxford, Dr Raghunath will deliver a series of talks on human–AI social capital, lifelong learning, and career advancement. In addition to her public talks, she will pursue research collaboration opportunities with Oxford colleagues focusing on how technological change reshapes learning, employability, and social capital across different institutional and cultural contexts.