Madhur Singh Pradhan

Madhur Singh Pradhan is a Project Researcher in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, where she works on the Development Commissioner (Handicrafts), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India sponsored project on “Unified AI-Enabled Craft Ecosystem Platform”. She works in the Science Behind Craft section of the project, exploring the knowledge, processes, and scientific and technological principles that are woven into India’s diverse craft traditions.
Madhur holds a Master’s degree in English and Comparative Literature from Pondicherry University, where she completed her postgraduate studies with a strong academic record and topped her fourth semester with a 9.8 CGPA. Her academic interests have included literature, gender, culture, and the relationship between literary and social practices. Her Master’s dissertation, Confronting Patriarchy, Discrimination, and Insecurity: Women in the Works of Contemporary Odia Women Short Story Writers, examined representations of women and questions of patriarchy and discrimination in contemporary Odia literature. Prior to joining IIT Kharagpur, Madhur worked as a Research Assistant in the Department of English at the University of Delhi on an ICHR-funded project.
Madhur also has teaching experience in English at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She has worked as Guest Faculty at UN (Autonomous) College of Science and Technology, Odisha, where she taught Master’s students areas including literary theory, gender studies, poetry, drama, and grammar. She previously taught at NMIMS Hyderabad, mentoring undergraduate students in functional and professional English, including grammar, vocabulary, phonetics, communication skills, and professional skills.
Her professional experience also includes work in translation. At Breakthrough Trust, she translated Odisha State Government curriculum materials in Geography and Economics from Odia into English, with the work aimed at improving gender outcomes and advancing gender equity. Her engagement with translation has also extended into literary publishing. She is a co-translator of Will Rise Like a Phoenix – Select Odia Poems of Late Basant Muduli, published as part of the Chitra Translation Series in 2025.
Alongside her academic and research work, Madhur maintains an active creative practice as an amateur artist and book-cover designer. She has designed cover paintings for a number of literary publications, including Odia novels, story collections, and English translations of regional literature. Her design work includes the cover of the Odia novel Meghana, the English translation of Bhima Prusty’s The Land of No Return, and the Odia translation of Namita Gokhale’s Sahitya Akademi Award-winning novel Things to Leave Behind.
At IIT Kharagpur, these interests converge in her work on the Science Behind Craft, where she contributes a humanities-oriented perspective to the documentation and understanding of India's diverse craft traditions and the knowledge systems embedded within them.