S. Mitra Kalita '98 JMS

www.desiwriter.com

S. Mitra Kalita is a general assignment reporter at The Washington Post and serves as president of the South Asian Journalists Association. She is the author of "Suburban Sahibs: Three immigrant families and their passage from India to America," published by Rutgers University Press (2003) and Penguin-India (2004). She has written extensively about immigration and the South Asian diaspora. She previously worked for Newsday in New York City as a business reporter, carving a beat out of immigration and the economy. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, she did extensive reporting on the backlash faced by Arabs and South Asians in the New York area, and authored a chapter in a book about the experience ("At Ground Zero: The Young Reporters Who Were There Tell Their Stories"). She has reported from Buffalo and Bombay, and many points in between.

Mitra graduated from Rutgers University, Phi Beta Kappa, with a bachelor's in history and journalism.

She received her master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Mitra has received numerous awards for her work, is featured in the "Best Business Stories of 2003" and was named Young Journalist of the Year by the New York State Associated Press Association. She has lived in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., where she lives now with her husband, artist Nitin Mukul.