Tel Aviv: India’s pioneering feminist scholar and activist Gita Sen, has won the prestigious Dan David Prize for her expansive work in the fields of population policies, reproductive and sexual health, women’s rights, poverty, labour markets and global governance.
Sen, who is the Director of the Ramalingaswami Centre on Equity and social Determinants of Health at the Public Health Foundation of India, has combined her 35 years of academic career with policy advocacy and activism, helping to shape the global paradigm shift on population and development.
”Her innovative research on disadvantaged populations in low income rural settings, together with her mentorship of young scholars and advocates, has made a significant impact on the field”, a press release from the Dan David Foundation headquartered at Tel Aviv University said.
The internationally renowned Dan David Prize annually awards three prizes of $ 1 million each to globally inspiring individuals and organisations, honouring outstanding contributions that expand knowledge of the past, enrich society in the present, and promise to improve the future of our world. The total purse of $ 3 million makes it one of the highest-value prizes internationally.
The fields chosen for honouring contributions in the three categories this year are cultural preservation and revival (past category), gender equality (present category), and artificial intelligence (future category).
Sen will be splitting the $ 1 million prize in the present category for this year with Debora Diniz who is the deputy director of the rights and justice unit for the International Planned Parenthood Federation-Western Hemisphere Region.
Diniz oversees strategies to promote and protect gender equality, sex, and reproductive rights and health, and to eliminate violence against women and girls in Latin America and the Caribbean region.
A citizen of India, Sen holds a doctoral degree in economics from the Stanford University. She is an adjunct professor of global health and population at Harvard University and has been a professor of public policy at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore.
She also serves as the General Coordinator of DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era) of which she is a founding member. She has also worked with the United Nations in several capacities and serves on the Scientific and Technical Advisory group for the WHO’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research.
Sen is a member of the Mission Steering Group for the National Rural Health Mission and Governing Board of the National Health Systems Resource Centre.