Manisha’s dissertation evaluates how middle class-led initiatives to promote sustainable waste management and transportation systems affect Bangalore’s poor and working classes. Using a participatory and community-based research approach, she looked at the conditions under which waste management and transportation systems can be made more environmentally sustainable, while also enhancing the livelihoods and experiences of Bangalore’s working poor. After she receives her Ph.D. in May 2015 she will become an Assistant Professor at Saint Mary’s College of California.