Meena Khandelwal

Meena Khandelwal (Col ’85, Grad ’88, Grad ’95) has published her second ethnographic monograph, Cookstove Chronicles: Social Life of a Women’s Technology in India. It examines traditional, biomass-burning mud stoves, the women who build and use them, and the experts who have been trying to ‘improve’ them for decades. She answers the question of why so many Indian women continue to use wood-burning, smoke-spewing stoves when they have other options. Khandelwal, a professor of anthropology, recently won the 2025 President and Provost Award for Teaching Excellence at the University of Iowa, her third teaching award.