Sandhya Rani Jha, MPP, MDiv

Sandhya Jha is a PhD student at the School of Social Policy and Practice. Their areas of interest include the impact of grassroots social movements on public policy and engaging the intersection of race and class in developing models of deep democracy and governance. They are grateful to be a Presidential Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

Sandhya holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Divinity and Master of Public Policy from the University of Chicago.

Prior to beginning their PhD, Sandhya engaged in advocacy and organizing around religious liberty, housing justice, labor justice, and violence reduction in Washington, DC and then Oakland, California. They have published books on race and religion, effective community organizing strategies, and the role of connecting with ancestors as a tool in the work of dismantling systems of oppression.

“During the application process, a decades-long friend told me SP2 is ‘functioning out of the values you care about. It’s going to be the school that helps you wrestle with the kinds of questions that are important to you.’ I come out of a community organizing and social change background, and I’m really interested in the intersection of philanthropy and social movements. What I love about SP2 is that I am surrounded by brilliant people whose overarching goal is to make the world a better place, so I am constantly around people taking on critical issues in innovative ways and managing to show up for each other in the process.”