Rate My Professor Archna Kumar

Prof. Archna Kumar is a Professor in the Department of Development Communication and Extension at Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi. She holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Community Resource Management and Extension from the University of Delhi. With nearly 30 years of teaching experience, she has guided numerous master's dissertations and Ph.D. theses. Her teaching portfolio includes courses on Communication for Social Change, Gender, Participatory Development, Behaviour Change Theories, Research Methods, and Programme Evaluation. She has served in key administrative roles, including Head of the Department of Development Communication and Extension, Officiating Director, and Vice Principal of Lady Irwin College. Prof. Kumar has been involved as a consultant with UNICEF, serving as a master trainer for the Most Significant Change technique in monitoring and evaluation of behaviour change communication programs, and as Technical Advisor for national-level evaluations.

Her research specializations encompass monitoring and evaluation of communication for social change initiatives, participatory methods, community media, and extension programs. Notable projects include the UNICEF-funded Responsive Parenting project for developing a resource kit on responsive parenting for 3-6 year olds, the US Mission in India and Humboldt State University-funded study on rural youth volunteers, and the International Federation of Home Economics-funded project on community radio and hill women’s participation in health communication. Key publications comprise the co-authored book Dynamics of Human Communication (Orient BlackSwan, 2016) with Sarita Anand; book chapters such as “Handholding the chords of change: Zeroing on the power of Participation and Participatory Communication in Empowerment” in Women Led Empowerment (2020) and “Relevance of Stories: Stories of Relevance” in Emerging Evaluation Experiences (2020); and journal articles including “A critical review of studies related to construction and computation of Sustainable Development Indices” in Ecological Indicators (2020) and “Factors influencing Community Healthcare Worker’s adoption of mobile health technology (mhealth): A case of sangini supportive supervision (sangini) app, Uttar Pradesh, India” in Indian Journal of Community Health (2021). She received the 2019 Herbert I. Schiller Award for the best paper “Communication Processes, Community Mobilization and Normative Shifts: Learnings from Video Volunteers’ India Unheard Program” at the IAMCR conference in Madrid. Prof. Kumar has delivered invited talks at events like GLOCAL 2023 and IAMCR 2019, and contributed to e-content development for IGNOU.