Dr. Indira Priyadarshini Ravindran teaches international politics, economics, and law at the Shanghai International Studies University (School of International Relations and Public Affairs). She has previously taught at other Shanghai universities, and in the semester abroad program of an American university, which involved regular visits to a campus in Beijing. She has lived in Shanghai with her family since the year 2007.

Indira received her PhD in Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, USA. As a graduate student, she was actively involved in campaigns for racial justice in Baltimore neighborhoods, and on issues such as 'living wages' for contract workers in the university system. Her doctoral research was on international refugee law and on the history of the UNHCR. While working on her dissertation, Indira also worked for an international civil society organization in Washington DC: this experience afforded her the privilege of interacting with hundreds of researchers and advocates from within the UN system, and from NGOs around the world. She is engaged with NGOs working peacefully for education rights, land-water rights, and animal rights, in her home-state of Tamilnadu, India. Listening and talking to high-schoolers and undergraduates has been the most rewarding part of her professional life.