Welcome! I am a writer, sociologist, and educator. My research asks how racism, misogyny, and colonialism are experienced in cultural organizations and how workplace equity-based policies around diversity, equity, and inclusion are implemented. In my current book project, I explore how these processes unfold in historic and contemporary debates on defining "merit" and "meritocracy" in elite cultural organizations, such as for junior, tenure-track professors in the elite US research professoriate. I am a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the Center for the Humanities with the HEAL Project and received my PhD in sociology from Brown University. For any inquires, feel free to reach out via email (kehal@wisc.edu).

My work has been published in peer-reviewed academic outlets, such as Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Sikh Research Journal, and Journal of Community Engagement in Higher Education, and for public commentary, in Kaur Life and Conditionally Accepted. ​My research has been recognized by the Eastern Sociological Society's Charles V. Willie Minority Graduate Student Award and the Gender Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. 

In 2022, I will be presenting my work at the:​

• Association for Black Sociologists, "Phenomenologies of Researcher Subjectivity" panel
• Social Science History Association, "Archival Methods, Ethics, and Subjectivities" panel

​​I do not capitalize my name in English-printed media and you may also use ਪ੍ਰਭਦੀਪ if you prefer. In informal correspondences, I accept all iterations. My pronouns are they/them/theirs. 

​I share a land acknowledgment produced by Sherente Mishitashin Harris, Mack H. Scott III PhD (Narragansett Historian), Natives at Brown, and Decolonization at Brown as someone who works at Brown University on the ancestral Narragansett lands. In collaboration with Brown's Center for Students of Color, they have also produced a welcome video.