Dr. Upasna Chettri

Joint Academic Coordinator & Guest Faculty
Department of History
Darjeeling Hills University

BIO

Dr. Upasna Chettri is a Guest Faculty in the Department of History in Darjeeling Hills University, Mungpoo. Her specialisation is Ancient Indian History and Archaeology. Her Doctoral research focuses on the Archaeology of Sikkim- Darjeeling Himalayas and her M.Phil dissertation focuses on Buddhist paintings in Darjeeling.

EDUCATION

PhD, Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, 2025. (Thesis Title: Archaeology of Sikkim-Darjeeling Himalayas)

M.Phil, Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology, 2018. (Dissertation Title: A study of the Themes in Buddhist paintings in the Monasteries of Darjeeling)

MA, Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology., Visva-Bharati Santiniketan, 2016.

BA (Honours) Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology., Visva-Bharati Santiniketan, 2014.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Archaeology of Sikkim-Darjeeling region
Buddhist art in the Himalayas
Folklore and oral traditions
Ethno-archaeology
History and Heritage of the Eastern Himalayas

EXPERIENCE

Site Supervisor, Excavation at Lal Pahari, Lakhisarai, Bihar, Bihar Heritage Development Society in collaboration with the Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and archaeology, Visva Bharati University santiniketan, November 2017-July 2018.

Researcher, Annotated Atlas of the Heritage sites of Assam, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, December 2023-February 2024.

Researcher, Oral Traditions of the Lepchas: An Archaeological enquiry in Sikkim, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Inter University Accelerator Centre, August 2023-December 2025

PUBLICATIONS

Chettri, U & Sharma, S. (2024). Integrating Folktales in Archaeological Investigations: A Study from Sikkim Darjeeling Himalayas. Space and Culture, India 12:3. Pp. 83-106 https://doi.org/10.20896/saci.v12i03.1513

Chettri, U., Sharma, S. (2024). The Longchoks of Sikkim and North Bengal: The Need for Heritage Preservation and Awareness. In: Sharma, S., Uppaluri, R.V.S., Dutta, V., Kashyap, A. (eds) Policies for Research and Innovation. NERC 2022. (pp. 49-70). Springer, Singapore https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-5681-0_4

CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

To be updated.

GRANTS AND AWARDS

Granted AMS facility at Inter university Accelerator Centre for 14C funded by Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India with reference numbers MoES/16/07/11(i)-RDEAS and MoES/P.O.(Seismic)8(09)-Geochron/2012. August 2023- December 2025

Awarded Springer Best Paper at North East Research Conclave (NERC), 2022 for the paper “The Longchoks of Sikkim and North Bengal: The need for Heritage Preservation and Awareness”. 20th-22nd May, 2022

Awarded National Eligibility Test for Assistant Professor in Archaeology on 31.07.2017 by University Grants Commission (UGC). UGC Ref. No.: 18929/(NET-JAN 2017)

OTHER ACTIVITIES

To be updated.