Evan Tims is interested in the relationship between water, climate planning, and development in South Asia. Evan first traveled to Kolkata in 2018 as a Critical Language Scholar, and again in 2019 on the same grant, which were opportunities that allowed him to develop his skills in Bangla. In 2019, he graduated from Bard College with a joint major in written arts and human rights with a focus on anthropology. He then worked for the City Government of New York for almost two years before being named a Henry J. Luce Scholar. As a Luce Scholar, Evan studied in Nepal and researched water planning in the hydropower sector with Policy Entrepreneurs Inc., a Kathmandu-based NGO. He also studied and worked with a number of other organizations, including La.Lit magazine, where he conducted a creative writing workshop on climate change. This project led him to conduct more workshops and publish several works of climate storytelling from young writers in Nepal and Bangladesh. Currently, Evan works as a program associate with Activate, a U.S. nonprofit that funds scientists working on climate-related technologies.
For his Fulbright-Nehru project, Evan is conducting ethnographic research on the perceptions about Kolkata’s water future among distinct communities with connections to the Hooghly River. By balancing his work between groups of urban planners and those who have other relationships with the river, he is studying the differences between professionalized, scientific, and lived experiences of Kolkata’s water. Evan is also seeking to understand the complex, layered relationships between stakeholder communities as they seek to negotiate the future of water in a rapidly developing city.