Malini Sur is the Director of Higher Degree Research and Teaching at the Institute for Culture and Society and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the School of Social Sciences. She studies the mobility of people, goods, territories and everyday technologies within the context of global and climatic forces. She has been awarded research funding from the Australian Research Council, Dutch Research Council, Ministry of Education Singapore, and Tata Trusts. Among her publications are an award-winning book, co-edited books and three special issues on the mobility of objects, urban cycling and Asian cities. Her globally acclaimed documentary Life Cycle, which examines the intersections of repair economies, air pollution and urban cycling in India, has been screened across five continents and is widely used in university teaching. She is currently completing a documentary film - Parramatta Redux - which focuses on the motions of everyday life and urban renewal along the Parramatta River. 

A/P Sur has served as the President of the Australian Anthropological Society (2024) and on the Jury for Bernard S. Cohn Award. Her academic leadership in fostering international and interdisciplinary collaborations includes managing a Ford Foundation grant for the South Asia program for the Social Science Research Council (New York). 

A/P Sur’s book Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India-Bangladesh Border (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) was awarded the President’s Book Prize from the South Asian Studies Association of Australia and Bernard S. Cohen Prize (honorable mention). It was also named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2022. Her work features in Public Books New York, New Books Network, Conversations in Anthropology, The Polis Project and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She has worked and held fellowships at the Australian National University, the University of Amsterdam, the University of Toronto, the National University of Singapore, and the Social Science Research Council (New York). A/P Sur is an Associate Editor of South Asia – Journal of South Asian Studies and serves on the editorial boards of the Australian Journal of Anthropology, Commoning Ethnography and Humanities Research. She has served on the Executive Committee of the South Asian Studies Association of Australia (2017-2020) and was ICS’ Deputy Director of Engagement and International (2021-2022). A/P Sur is currently completing a book manuscript on bicycling in India.