Ms. Aesha Datta graduated in English literature from Hindu College, University of Delhi in 2008 and went on to study journalism at the Asian College of Journalism. She has been a journalist for over 12 years and has worked with publications such as ET Prime, The Hindu Business Line and the India Today Group. Her writing has focused on the intersection of the climate crisis and its impact on society. In her last stint as an Assistant Editor – Environment with ET Prime, she single-handedly steered the environmental and climate coverage for the publication.
In 2017, she was awarded the WWF-India Young Media Climate Fellowship, during which she reported from the Sundarbans and Ladakh on climate-linked migration and community-led climate adaptation.
Her experiences with climate impacts as an environmental journalist, and prior to that as a volunteer for organizations such as Greenpeace India, drives her to keep a people-first approach to her writing and to connect the dots between climate science, policy, economics, and community impact.
As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow at Columbia University, she is studying the convergence of climate science, equity, policy, law, and business. Upon returning to India, she intends to continue to communicate the ever-intensifying climate crisis and expects that her master’s degree will both improve her understanding of the subject and her ability to articulate the same. She wants to combine her years of practical, on-ground experience with the academic training she receives to work in the public policy and advocacy space.