Radhika Balakrishnan

Radhika Balakrishnan (born in Ootacamund, India) is the faculty director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University. Currently, she serves as the Chair of the Board of the United States Human Rights Network and Chair on the Board of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and is a Commissioner for the Commission for Gender Equity for the City of New York.

Radhika Balakrishnan grew up in Tamil Nadu, India and moved to Chicago, Illinois when she was 13 years old. She attended the University of Illinois initially to study engineering, but switched majors and graduated in 1980 with a B.A. in Economics. It was at the University of Illinois that Balakrishnan first became involved in the women's movement, which inspired her to study economics. In 1985 she received her M.A. in Economics, and in 1990 she received her Ph.D. in Economics, both from Rutgers University.

From 1992 to 1995, Radhika Balakrishnan worked at the Ford Foundation as a program officer in the Asian Regional Program. From 2003 to 2009, she was a professor at Marymount Manhattan College where she taught economics and international studiesIn September 2009, she joined Rutgers University as a professor of Women's and Gender Studies and the executive director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership, where she focused on issues of economics and social justice from a feminist perspective as they relate to macroeconomic policy, especially in health and education. Radhika Balakrishnan now serves as the faculty director of the Center.

• "More Women Peacekeepers Is Not the Solution" Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews RADHIKA BALAKRISHNAN of the Centre for Women's Global Leadership. Inter Press Service, December 2010.
• 16 Days of Activism: Spotlight on Militarism. Global Fund for Women, November 2010.
• Interview with Radika Balakrishnan on Huffington Post Article Why Human Rights are Indispensable to Financial Regulation. Law and Order Radio, Pacific Radio, April 2010.
• NGLS Interviews Radhika Balakrishnan, Executive Director, Center for Women’s Global Leadership. UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN NGLS), January 2010.
• Experts Comment on Rights in Times of Economic Crisis. Center for Economic and Social Rights, November 2009.

• ""More Women Peacekeepers Is Not the Solution" Cléo Fatoorehchi interviews RADHIKA BALAKRISHNAN of the Centre for Women's Global Leadership". Retrieved 13 December 2010. 
• "16 Days of Activism: Spotlight on Militarism". Retrieved 13 December 2010. 
• "NGLS Interviews Radhika Balakrishnan, Executive Director, Center for Women's Global Leadership". Retrieved 13 December 2010. 

Radhika Balakrishnan's primary research interests are gender and development, human rights and the global economy, and human rights and economic social rights.

Balakrishnan's publications include:

Books

• Why MES with Human Rights? Integrating Macro Economic Strategies with Human Rights (New York: Marymount Manhattan College, 2005)
• The Hidden Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy (Editor) (Kumarian Press, 2001)
• Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World's Religions (Co-editor along with Patricia Jung and Mary Hunt) (Rutgers University Press, 2000)

Recent articles and book chapters

• "Corporate Control of Our Democracy: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission," Co-authored with James Heintz in The Huffington Post, July 2010.
• "Making the International Monetary Fund Accountable to Human Rights," Co-authored with James Heintz in The Huffington Post, April 2010.
• "Rethinking Macro Economic Strategies from a Human Rights Perspective," Co-authored with Diane Elson and Raj Patel in Development Vol.53 No.1. March 2010.
• "Why Human Rights are Indispensable to Financial Regulation," Co-authored with James Heintz in The Huffington Post, March 2010
• "Auditing Economic Policy in the Light of Obligations on Economic and Social Rights," Co-authored with Diane Elson in Essex Human Rights Review Vol.5 No.1. July 2008.
• "Exploring Collaborations: Heterodox Economics and Economic Social Rights Framework," in Feminist Economics Vol.13 No.1. January 2007.
• "Why do Firms Disintegrate? Towards an Understanding of the Firm-Level Decision to Subcontract and its Implication for Labor," Co-authored with Asad Sayeed in Labor and the Globalization of Production: Causes and Consequences of Industrial Upgrading edited by William Milberg. 2004, Palgrave Macmillan.

• "Radhika Balakrishnan, Faculty Director". The Center for Women's Global Leadership. 
• "Radhika Balakrishnan, Faculty Director". The Center for Women's Global Leadership. Retrieved 27 September 2010.