Pushkar Sohoni

Pushkar Sohoni was born in Pune, and attended Loyola High School (Pune). After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree from the University of Pune in 1999, he attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Design (then known as the Graduate School of Fine Arts) to get a Master of Science (M.S.) in Historic Preservation. In 2002, he wrote a Master's Thesis under the guidance of Prof. Frank Matero on preservation policy for the city walls of Cairo.[4] Pushkar Sohoni worked on conservation projects in Mesa Verde National Park and in the Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans, as part of the Centre for Architectural Conservation (then known as the Architectural Conservation Laboratory) at the University of Pennsylvania.[5][6][7] From 2002, he was in the Department of History of Art of the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the archaeological expedition to Iran in 2004, to excavate sites of the Jiroft culture.[8] In 2005, he worked for the Architectural Heritage division of INTACH, New Delhi, working on the documentation of Durbar Hall in Qila Mubarak, Patiala. In 2010, he received his doctoral degree (Ph.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania for his dissertation on the architecture of the Nizam Shahi dynasty.[9][10] He worked under the supervision of Prof. Michael W. Meister and Prof. Renata Holod.

Pushkar Sohoni was the post-doctoral fellow in Indo-Persian Studies at the University of British Columbia in 2010-2011,[11] after which he returned to the University of Pennsylvania as the South Asia Bibliographer and Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries,[12][13][14] and a lecturer in the Department of South Asian Studies from 2011 to 2016. In this period, Pushkar Sohoni was in charge of the South Asia Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, and wrote a "widely circulated blog post" on collecting practices for libraries.[15] He was on the advisory board of the Title VI South Asia Center.[16] Pushkar Sohoni also served as a member of the Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation (CONSALD),[17] and was on the executive board of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP) from 2013 to 2015.[18] In 2015, he authored a book, Aurangabad, with Daulatabad, Khuldabad, and Ahmadnagar, focused on the sultanate architecture in the region.[19][20] The book was quoted in a Bombay High Court order in 2018.[21]
In October 2016, Pushkar Sohoni joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune as an Assistant Professor, and became an Associate Professor in 2019.[22] In 2017, he co-authored with Kenneth X. Robbins, a book on the Jewish heritage in the western Deccan, titled Jewish Heritage of the Deccan: Mumbai, the Northern Konkan and Pune.[23][24][25][26] In 2017-2018, he wrote a fortnightly column 'By the Wayside' for the Pune Mirror.[27] In 2017-18, he was a visiting Associate Professor at Anant National University.[28][29] In 2018, his book on the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar and their architectural legacy in 2018, called The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate: Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India was published.[30][31][32] His work on the palaces of the Nizam Shahs has been cited in several popular and scholarly articles and essays.[33] He has also written about language, scripts, numismatics, and material culture.[34][35][36]
Pushkar Sohoni often speaks at public events, and has led heritage walks.[37][38][39] He often speaks on the local history of Pune.[40][41] Dr. Sohoni has lectured extensively on the architecture of the Deccan.[42][43] He has lectured on several occasions at Jnanapravaha in Mumbai.[44][45] He has also appeared in a documentary film Tales of Ahmednagar on historic Ahmednagar produced by Live History India, a portal for which he was one of the earliest contributors.[46] He has also featured in other films on the kings of Ahmadnagar, such as The Mad King Murtaza. In January 2020, he was on a panel at the Kerala Literature Festival to discuss Tony Joseph's book Early Indians.[47][48]
He has taught regular courses at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of the Arts (Philadelphia), and the University of British Columbia in addition to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune.[49][50] He has been a visiting critic at KRVIA.[51] He also occasionally lectures as Jnanapravaha, Mumbai.[52]
Since 2015, he is an Associate Editor of South Asian Studies (Journal of the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS)).[53][54] Pushkar Sohoni is on the Board of Studies for Architecture (Department of Science and Technology), Savitribai Phule Pune University since 2018 and the Board of Studies for Architecture at Vishwakarma University since 2019.

The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) awarded Pushkar Sohoni a Junior Research Fellowship in 2007-08.[55] He was a member of the project Art Space and Mobility in the Early Ages of Globalization,[56] organized by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz.[57] While in residence at Green College, University of British Columbia, Pushkar Sohoni served on the executive board of the Dining Committee, Residents' Council, and the Membership Committee.[58] In 2013, he was a sub-reviewer for projects that had received the Aga Khan Architectural Award. He is interested in numismatics, and has lent coins to exhibitions, including the show Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.[59][60][61][62] In 2016-17, he and C. Ryan Perkins won an award from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) to conduct workshops for the cataloging and preservation of the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu library in Karachi.[63] Pushkar Sohoni was a non-residential visiting scholar of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 2016-17.[64] He has received research grants from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and the Indian Council of Historical Research.