Kalyani Ramnath is an Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University whose research focuses on modern South Asian history, with particular emphasis on law, migration, and state formation in the twentieth century. Her scholarship explores how ordinary people interacted with emerging legal and bureaucratic systems during moments of political upheaval, especially around the time of the Partition of India. She is the author of Boats in a Storm: Law, Migration, and Decolonization in South and Southeast Asia, 1942–1962, a critically acclaimed work that examines how displaced individuals navigated courts and governments across newly forming nation-states. Trained as a legal historian, Ramnath combines archival research with social history to illuminate the lived experiences behind large geopolitical transformations. Her work contributes to broader conversations about decolonization, citizenship, and the making of the postcolonial world, positioning her as an important voice in contemporary South Asian historiography.