Hello, I’m Ravinder Kumar from Haryana, India.
My journey into history began quite differently from that of most history students. I studied science during my undergraduate years in a small town called Narnaul, about ten miles from the village where I was born and raised. However, I soon realized that physics, chemistry, and mathematics were the proverbial three mistakes of my life—and I decided to switch my focus to history.
Between 2017 and 2021, I prepared for government exams, took on a few jobs, taught high school students, and continued to study history on my own. My passion for research deepened after meeting Dr. Rama Shanker Singh and Dr. Nishikant Kolge. In 2021, I qualified for India’s National Eligibility Test with the Junior Research Fellowship, which enabled me to pursue a PhD in Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Madras.
After two years of enriching coursework at IIT Madras, I decided to discontinue the program for personal reasons—mainly, the desire to receive specialized training in history. I subsequently joined the Department of History at the University of Oregon as a PhD student in 2023.
I am fluent in Hindi, English, Punjabi, Haryanvi, and some Urdu. As a Graduate Employee (GE), I enjoy teaching and grading. Beyond academia, my interests include politics, poetry, cinema, and Hindi literature. When I’m not reading history, I’m usually writing bad poems.
