Dr. Sivakami, a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Science in India, discusses her background in population studies and her transition from quantitative to qualitative research methods. She emphasizes the importance of collaboration and international recognition in advancing research goals. Dr. Sivakami also discusses her work on menstrual hygiene management in India and the challenges faced by women in balancing academic responsibilities with outside commitments. She highlights the significance of ethical practices and gender equality in her work and involvement in various committees. Overall, Dr. Sivakami’s experiences have shaped her perspective on studying health, gender, and demographics and have led to impactful projects funded by grants.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello everybody. This week, we have a guest all the way from India, Dr. Sivakami. I was honored to be able to speak with her. Dr. Sivakami has her master’s and PhD in population studies and has had numerous academic appointments, grants. She’s on multiple boards. She is one busy lady and we will get into that in this episode. Dr. Sivakami’s work broadly focuses on demography, gender and health. She was originally trained as a quantitative researcher, but has transitioned into including and conducting qualitative research in most of her studies and now resonates most with a mixed methodology approach to research.

There’s some really great takeaways from this episode, including the path to a PhD and how research interests can ebb and flow and change over the course of not only the process of getting a PhD, but once you start your career with it. We also talked about how the commitments of an academic career interplay with things outside of just your job, like motherhood or being involved in outside organizations. If it’s your first time with us, I’m so happy you’re here. We are a student-run podcast called From the Front Row that talks about major issues in public health and how they’re relevant to anyone, both in and outside of the field of public health.

So without further ado, Dr. Sivakami.

We are honored to have you on the podcast today. Could you start by introducing yourself?

M Sivakami:

Thank you, Lauren, for having me here. I’m absolutely, absolutely delighted to be doing this. I am Sivakami. I’m a professor at the Tata Institute of Social Science in India, which is located in Mumbai. We are one of the premier social science institutes in India. I’m here as a global public health visiting scholar and I’m honored to be here with that invitation, which is actually helping me explore the possibilities for future work with CPH colleagues and also helping conduct one of the PhD student Priyanka, her doctoral defense.

Lauren Lavin:

How long are you here for?

M Sivakami:

I have been here for a week now. Now I go from here to Atlanta to visit Emory University for a day, and then a day with my friend, then I’ll fly back to India.

Lauren Lavin:

Are you looking forward to going back home?

M Sivakami:

Yes, of course. I have a small daughter, so of course I’m looking forward to [inaudible 00:02:42].

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, sweet.

M Sivakami:

Yeah, because that is the reason why I hesitated even to come here. When Priyanka and Dr. Rima asked me whether I could visit here as a visiting doctor, I was very hesitant because I didn’t want to leave my daughter behind. Then the way that Priyanka and Rima asked me, which kind of motivated me, okay, why not? I’ve not been in class for such a long time. Then I’ve been working with these colleagues now for the last three and a half years almost. So then I thought, okay, why not? I accept the invitation and honor that, and explore the possibility of being here so that I could understand how things work here and also establish a future collaboration. It’s always good to be in person to do future collaborations if one is thinking about.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah, [inaudible 00:03:31].

M Sivakami:

I’m so excited to also be part of Priyanka’s as one of the committee member.

Lauren Lavin:

That is great. Well, we were so honored to have you here. You have a very extensive background in demographic research. How has your journey unfolded from your early days at university?

M Sivakami:

Right, thank you. Lauren. Actually when I saw this question, honestly it kind of made me think through my life over for a long time. One has not really thought through about that, so it really helped me reflect about that. Just to give you a little bit of context where I come from, what kind of education that I have, also to set the tone to understand where I’m currently, my graduation and PhD was from one of the state universities in Tamil Nadu. It is actually a southern state in India. I considered switching my stream from chemistry to social science was a turning point in my life.

I did undergraduates in chemistry. Then from there, I moved to social science studying the population science and demography. That was a turning point for me. Coming from a small tiny village in one of the southern state to a city called Coimbatore for my graduation and PhD was a life-changing event for me.

Lauren Lavin:

I’m sure.

M Sivakami:

A life-changing phase for me. For me to have this change from a very small village, very tiny village. Even today we don’t have many PhDs. There’s only one person after me who have done PhD very recently. There were three people I would credit my entire journey towards academics. There are two members from my family, my mother and my uncle, my father’s brother, were very keen in educating me in times and surroundings where girls’ education was viewed only from the marriage perspective. I come from a generation and cohort where girls were educated in my village and my community for a better marriage prospect.

I was fortunate to have a mother who never went to school, so she always told me that “I never went near school neither for a rain, not for a sun and shade. So you can study as much as you want.” I think that kind of always stuck in my head. I wanted to pursue study as much as I wanted, and PhD was one of the highest degree that I could pursue. When I finished my undergraduate and I went for this graduation to the city, I was fortunate to work with a professor who was educated in US and I was very, very fond of wanting to work with him. When I finished my graduation, he asked me whether I would like to do PhD with him, which really changed my life I must say that 360 degrees.

Had that not happened, probably I’m not here talking to you in this podcast. I had a lot of difficulty in terms of language as I studied in a vernacular medium for most part of my education until I moved to graduation. Working with my supervisor really helped me shape my language and also my worldview about everything. I would say everything, not just my academics, but everything. I always say that to my students now. I think for me it’s a time for me to pay it forward. I’m standing on a platform that my guide Professor PM Kulkarni, a well-known demographer in India, gave.

I owe my entire career to three people, two from my family, which is my mom and my uncle, and the third one is my supervisor. Without my family and my supervisor, I would not have made it to the place that I’m in the DISS as a professor and I would not have been made to Iowa and doing this podcast with you. That’s the kind of journey that I have had till my PhD. Once I finished my PhD, I got an offer within a couple of months from my PhD to an organization called Institute for Social and Economic Change, where I worked for almost a decade, nine and a half years I worked there.

While doing demography back in Coimbatore, I did not study beyond demography, but my first job in an organization where I was exposed to, there are other fields in the social science, I literally, literally embraced that opportunity to learn and shape my thinking. Around this period that I was very, very early on in my career, there were a couple of friends who helped me navigate in my post job. I was a 27-year old who got a job as an assistant professor, and I went there. I was still not moved out from my student life, but some of these friends really, really helped me.

I would say that being open to learning new things and surrounding yourself with supportive people is critical in our life. So till then, I think this was till 2010, 2010, I moved to Tata Institute of Social Science for a parallel position. By then, I was an associate professor in my earlier organization in Bangalore, which is again in a South Indian Research Institute. When I had this opportunity moved to 2010, I was honestly, I must admit that, very unsure whether I was making the right decision because I was already an associate professor and I was moving for a same parallel position to an organization which was taking me farther away from my family.

I thought about it, but I made the bold decision to move. I don’t know what made me to move. I think basically I was looking for probably a better opportunity, better career, career taking off. Today, if you ask me, that was one of the best decisions in my career and I’ve not looked back. Moving to TISS was really one of my life-changing in my entire career. However, I must admit that the initial days were a bit scary and nerve-racking. The reason why I say it was a bit scary and nerve-racking, I moved from an organization where I used to teach PhD students in my class. There will be one or two demography or population study PhD students or maximum 10 PhD students to an organization where my first class of teaching for graduate students were one 20 in my class.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, my gosh.

M Sivakami:

Yeah. I was standing in this podium for my first class and I can’t tell you, my blood was reaching up to my head. That was my first class, so it was a really a nerve-racking experience. Once I got past that initial months and I very soon realized that I love teaching and it came very natural to me, I soon also realized that I loved shaping students for their research. Working alongside students and mentoring is what makes me thrive at this stage in my career. That kind of sums up from my graduation to what I do today.

Today, I have an opportunity to mentor several PhD students and dozens of master’s students. I teach such big classes and it’s no longer a nerve-racking, but so that’s it.

Lauren Lavin:

Well, what an eloquent way to describe your journey. Even though I think, obviously you’re from India, I think a lot of American academic students relate to that same thing of having mentors in their life that help to determine their path and being uncertain if they want to move away from their family. I think that there’s a lot more commonality amongst the two systems than maybe we would originally believe. Could you elaborate on the significance of your research titled Mother’s Work Participation in Child Health, A Study in Poor Localities in Tamil, Nadu, India, and what were the key findings and implications in that research?

M Sivakami:

Great. Frankly, you made me think about the work that I did 20 years ago. This was my PhD work.

Lauren Lavin:

Really?

M Sivakami:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

Making you think back.

M Sivakami:

I must say that I enjoyed every bit of this work. Today, one has so many responsibility as a faculty, as a mentor for research students, as you have your family, child and other care activities that you do. But back then, when I did my PhD, all I did was study and do work.

Lauren Lavin:

Exactly.

M Sivakami:

I literally, literally studied. But this PhD work, I learned so many valuable lessons during this period, not just in my research, but also in general about the value of research, what research can contribute to shaping policies and how to conduct ethical research, and how to be a better human being in fact. That was one thing I learned from my guide. Today, people tell me, my students tell me that, “Ma’am, you are inspiring for us and we look up to you.” I keep wondering that I’m not doing anything so different and I’m doing exactly what my guide did probably 23 years ago for me to lift me up and help me shape who I am today.

Coming to the work that I did when I did this work, there were two schools of thought on the impact of mothers’ work participation on child health. One school of thought was that mothers’ work positively influenced child health as mothers who are working would have better income at their disposal and have relatively better autonomy, and there is hence a positive outcome. That’s the one school of thought. The other school of thought was using the large scale studies, large scale data was that mothers’ work had a negative impact on child mortality and health because often mothers who are working would have a less time at their disposal, hence they may neglect their child.

That was the kind of argument the two schools of thought. I was very intrigued by this, though, very, very naively in those days. I must say that it was not so consciously I was intrigued. I was so naive in research, but then I was definitely intrigued by the two school of thought. Hence, I wanted to understand in that the pathways in which mothers’ work participation on child health using a primary data. I went on to collect information on mothers’ work participation on child health from a very resource-poor setting in India. Using my extensive literature during that process, what I found was mother’s time is the key factor here, not just the autonomy or the income that she’s earning, but mother’s time at her disposal is one of the key factors that was often measured in the literature around women’s work and child health was total time spent on child care. That is how much time mother is able to spend on child care.

What I did was… I think I’m very proud to say that when I did that, I broke that into two major categories, that mother’s time on basic child care activities and other child care activities like playing with children, etc. Interestingly enough, when I did my analysis for the research, I found out that there was not so much difference between mother’s time on child care when it comes to basic activities, irrespective of her work status. It is the time that’s spent on extra activities like playing or teaching the children that gets affected when mother takes up an employment. This is very important to understand, especially for women from poor household. As mothers need to take up these jobs, there is no choice other than taking up this choice.

The narrative of all mother’s work affect negatively will have serious consequences for these mothers. Hence, I would say it’s important to look beyond what is conventionally measured and what is conventionally done so that we could contribute to the broader knowledge which would actually help shape the lives of many people. That’s what I would think the contribution that I’ve made 25 years ago probably.

Lauren Lavin:

Well, that seems like a pretty significant contribution. Did that impact the way that you think about being a mother now?

M Sivakami:

Clearly, I always tell people that I am a bad mother if I would’ve not had my job. I would be a bad professor if I would not have had a daughter.

Lauren Lavin:

I love that.

M Sivakami:

I need to have both of these to thrive in both these locations. I’m not saying that I’m able to break the ceilings and able to balance all of this or both of these roles that I have. There are times I have had to neglect my work to take care of my daughter, and there are other times I have to neglect her needs to try or deliver in my work. But having had my daughter for the last 10 years, I can safely comfortably say that it’s a challenging, but I need to have both of these identities for me to thrive in both these locations.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s really hopeful for any individuals that want a family because I don’t know that that’s always the narrative. That’s great to hear that from someone who’s been so successful.

M Sivakami:

Thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

You’ve transitioned from primarily quantitative research to incorporating many qualitative methods, and now you have a more mixed methodology approach in your research. How has this evolution changed your perspective on studying health, gender, and demographics?

M Sivakami:

Thank you for that question, Lauren. I’m always asked this question because my training initially primarily was in quantitative methods as demographer and population scientist. My primary training and initial work as an early career researcher for about 10 years. Mainly, I used quantitative approach to look at any of the public health issue or child health issue or any of the women’s health issue, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m not at all discounting that. I thoroughly enjoyed and I continue to enjoy even today.

However, when I moved to my current organization, which is Tata Institute of Social Science, my first research grant from Indian Council of Medical Research, which is one of the government bodies which funds very many critical studies, needed to use a mixed methodology approach. This was to understand migrants’ health in Mumbai. This gave me a great opportunity to learn if not the entire complexity of the qualitative methods at least to use in that particular project for that period.

So I took some training on qualitative methods, and I also read up a lot of research, articles, and papers which have used qualitative research methods, which helped me to gain confidence to use both of these methods for this particular project. When I did the project and I realized that I thoroughly enjoyed bringing these two methods and what these two methods can offer to each other, honestly, clearly these two methods can actually offer and complement so much to each other.

For example, using quantitative methods, we are able to measure the magnitude, how big the problem is. In our project, we were able to understand migrants’ health situations and the reasons for not utilizing healthcare among the migrants. But the reasons for not utilizing healthcare among the migrants, we use the qualitative methods like in-depth interview and FGDs to understand in-depth and in a more broader, I would say, depth knowledge. That’s when I realized how these methods can perfectly complement each other to understand people’s health and wellbeing beautifully.

Since then, somehow I’ve been fortunate. I’ve been consciously using both these methods in almost all my funded research. Quantitative methods helps us understand the macro picture, especially for the policy or if you have to impress the policymakers to listen to you, you need to tell them that how big this problem is. But the other one, qualitative methods helps us to understand the depth, why you see that differences that you see in that macro pictures. Both of these methods can perfectly complement each other, and I think as researchers, I would always encourage all researchers to make use of that so that we could benefit from both of these methods.

Lauren Lavin:

What a great explanation of quantitative versus qualitative and how they can work together. That was good. We’ve already established that you are a very busy lady. You have lots of jobs, but as an academic editor at the PLOS Global Public Health and a member of the Editorial Board for the BMC Women’s Midlife Health, could you share some of your insights into the current trends and challenges in these fields?

M Sivakami:

I’m glad you asked this question because one of the challenges people from Global South, especially the researchers from Global South faces, the publication costs for many of these well-reputed journals, whether it’s PLOS Global Public Health, or Landsat, or PLOS One, which are the top journals in our public health and health field. Publishing in these journals are very expensive for people from Global South as our universities do not have that kind of funding support for publications, unlike… See, I work with many of the colleagues from Global North.

So I know that many of these organizations have tie-up with these established journals where if the articles get published, they get support from their organizations for the processing fees. But unfortunately, people from Global South like me and other researchers, we don’t have that privilege unfortunately, to have that opportunity. That’s where a journal like PLOS Global Public Health comes in handy because we see many, many great articles from Global South that are of such good qualities.

Being in the Academic Board for the Sexual and Report Health is being really rewarding because I know how hard it is to publish in some of these established journals, but here is an opportunity I could help several colleagues from Global South, and PLOS Global Public Health is one of the journals which encourages and provides opportunity for Global South people with the less cost or sometimes with the funding support, full funding support.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s great.

M Sivakami:

Yeah, for me, that’s very, very, very important thing.

Lauren Lavin:

Is that journal primarily with contributors from the Global South or is it open to anyone?

M Sivakami:

It’s open to everybody. It’s open to everybody, but we do see very many scholarly work coming there because we know that if your paper is getting accepted, we could ask for the publication fee being waived off. I’m aware of many situations where the publication fee being waived off from people from the Global South.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s really important for diversity, especially in research. We want to be able to hear everybody’s voices.

M Sivakami:

Yes.

Lauren Lavin:

You are also involved in various committees, including the Ethics Committee at ICMRNIRRH, and as an internal committee member under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act 2013, which indicates a commitment to ethical practices and gender equality, both in your personal life and in your work. How do you navigate responsibilities outside of your academic career such as these alongside with your academic pursuits?

M Sivakami:

That’s a very good question again, I must say that, because any additional responsibility outside your teaching and research involves time. Being in this committee is a huge responsibility, not just from the time spent perspective, but it is also from the way that you spend the time here. Often you being in this committee, the time spent in these committees is not considered for your promotions, and one does not see a tangible benefits being in this committee. But I feel that it’s my responsibility to contribute to the development of an organization, especially at this level that I am in.

I’m already kind of a senior researcher. I do feel that yes, it’s going to take a lot of our time, but it is also our responsibility to build good ethical practices, safe environment for people who are working in the organizations. I believe that however it takes, we must contribute to those overall development of organizations. I understand where the customer is coming from and obviously it’s going to take huge time for you from your research and your teaching away. No doubt, I do have challenges in being in this committee because some of these committees take up time.

For example, if you’re part of the prevention of sexual harassment of workplace, those kinds of committees, you do have to inquire a number of times, and oftentimes these are outside your office hours. It is a huge responsibility, but I think let’s not shy away from taking up these responsibilities, especially at our level. I can understand colleagues who are in their early career struggling between these committees and the publications and teachings, but at least at our level, we must actually contribute to this for the overall development of the committee.

It also talks about who you are as a person. For example, for me, I have experienced so many gendered challenges while growing up and in my initial jobs and continue to face them. As a woman, you continue to face a lot of challenges both at your work and at your other lives. I think for me, this is a platform that I could make better for somebody else navigating those challenges. That’s a standpoint that I come when it comes to some of these committees, and I do recognize that it takes up time, but I do want to do that as a person. I think that really helps me to see who I am, actually.

Lauren Lavin:

I hope that many of us want to leave our communities in a better shape than we found them. Clearly you are doing that, especially for women that follow you.

M Sivakami:

Thank you.

Lauren Lavin:

You’ve also received many research grants from a multitude of prestigious organizations. How do these collaborations contribute to advancing your research goals? And then could you highlight any particularly impactful projects that have been funded by grants?

M Sivakami:

This is my absolutely favorite question.

Lauren Lavin:

Good.

M Sivakami:

See, I love working with projects that involve both national and international collaborations. Both these national and international collaborations helps you share and benefit from cross-cultural research experiences, and also the cross-cultural organizational experiences. You would gain these experiences only through collaborative projects. Like for example, I’ve had a number of projects both within India I’ve collaborated with colleagues, and also I’ve collaborated outside. I’m conscious of the fact that sharing knowledge in such collaborative projects can do wonders and enhance our appetite for new knowledge.

I think, for example, even me being here in Iowa this time, clearly I can see that it’s going to lend itself for future work. Colleagues I’ve been meeting the last one week and everybody, I think we’ve always found some common path to take it forward. These projects can really help you challenge yourself and also thrive in your work. I’ve done multiple projects over the years collaboratively. Of all the projects, if you ask me to reflect on, which is that one project that I would put it on the top, one of the projects that I did way back in 2015 and 16 with colleagues from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Lauren Lavin:

Wow.

M Sivakami:

Yeah. This is a colleague, and today I can safely call as a friend. It’s Professor Penelope Howard and this project on menstrual hygiene management, which it is one of the pet topic and my all time favorite topic for almost a decade now. This was a funding support from UNICEF way back in 2015 and 16. Although this project is over within a year, and almost 10 years ago, I still continue to work together on MHM issues globally and nationally. Our relationship during this project led to long-standing partnership with these colleagues, and we continue to write and publish even today through this project, along with colleagues in UNICEF India.

We also helped shape national guideline on menstrual hygiene management way back in 2015. The work from this project and my subsequent work on MHM has also helped me to become an expert on MHM in several national and international platforms. Just to share with you, this was also one of the projects which brought me here. The work that I’ve done on menstrual hygiene brought me here as a global health expert to CPH because Priyanka asked me way back three and a half years ago, knowing my work on menstrual hygiene management, whether I could be in her doctoral committee as one of the main supervisors.

Lauren Lavin:

Is menstrual hygiene management different, would you say in India versus the US?

M Sivakami:

Clearly. I gave a talk on last Tuesday on India’s story of menstrual hygiene. Even today, roughly about 30 to 40 percentage of young women do not use hygienic menstrual products in India. We have improved a lot. I’m not saying that we have not improved. For example, the time that I’ve started this work way back in 15 to now, we have phenomenally leaps and bounds we have improved. Those days, it was never been on government agenda. It was never been considered as a public health agenda. But today in India, we have a very dedicated menstrual hygiene program, and we are also, as we speak, we are actually talking about bringing out a national menstrual hygiene policy. We have done a huge, huge, tremendously improving over the years.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s great.

M Sivakami:

But we still have a long way to go. We still have, for example, there are intersectional issues among the menstrual hygiene management. For example, we don’t know so much about people with disability, what is their experiences? We barely have few experiences. And we don’t know sex workers, what is their menstrual hygiene experience is, and women at workplace and women who are in the later part of their life cycle approach. Later part, we tend to know more about the adolescent girls and young women, but there are also other women who navigate menstruation and heavy bleeding and other complications associated with menstruation in later part of their life. I don’t think menstrual hygiene is that major issue in general, but possibly for a group of individuals in US, it could be an issue.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s a really great point. Thank you for indulging that side question.

M Sivakami:

Yeah, no problem.

Lauren Lavin:

I just have one question left and then we can wrap it up. Winning the Linnaeus Palme Fellowship and the Global Spotlight International Research Seed Grant speaks volumes about your international recognition. How have these experiences influenced your approach to research? And you kind of already touched on this, but collaboration on the global scale.

M Sivakami:

Okay. I will talk about this in two parts. First and foremost, this helps build your confidence, especially when you are in a young and early career researcher. Any recognition you get nationally and outside internationally, it boosts your recognition right away. Such recognition and such collaborations also often leads to further collaborations both nationally and internationally. For example, even the invitation to come to Iowa and CPH as a global health visiting scholar is an excellent recognition for the good work one is doing.

So when I agreed to be on Priyanka’s committee, I never knew that such an opportunity would come in the future. When she approached me, I could not say no for not being in her committee because she worked on my favorite topic, which is on menstrual hygiene and a group where we have no evidence in India, which is trans men’s menstrual hygiene experience.

Lauren Lavin:

Yes.

M Sivakami:

However, this visit helped me also establish connections with several other colleagues in CPH, and that’s what these recognitions and awards help. Often these recognitions lead you to gain confidence, especially when you are an early career researcher and mid-career researchers. But then it also lends itself for a future larger collaboration, which really kind of takes up your career in different directions and makes you learn new things. What I would say in short for everyone, appreciation and recognitions are essential to thrive in our work, which often lends ourselves to establish a larger collaboration and participate in international forums, and also develop our career paths differently and navigate different challenges. That’s why the recognition and collaborations are always important.

Lauren Lavin:

Thanks for summarizing that. That was great, and thank you for being on the podcast. You had so much great wisdom to share, and I hope everyone that listens found a few. Thank you so much, Dr. Sivakami. We appreciated you sharing.

M Sivakami:

Thank you so much. It was really wonderful. You made me reflect about my journey so far, so that’s a nice way to sum up my trip here. Thank you so much.

Lauren Lavin:

We love to hear it.

That’s it for episode this week. Thank you to Dr. Sivakami for joining me today. This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited and produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at CPH-Gradambassador.uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.