The History Department is thrilled to announce that Indira Saha, an M.A. graduate in Public History, was awarded the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (CLAS) Outstanding Graduate Student award in Fall 2025. This prestigious honor recognizes Indira’s exceptional scholarship and her impactful community-oriented work.
Indira’s research interests are rooted in her personal experiences. Drawing inspiration from her family’s history of displacement during the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan, she focused her graduate research on exploring displacement and community memory. Her thesis, Culinary Divides: Food, Memory, and the Formation of East and West Bengali Identities after the Partition of 1947, examines how Bengali foodways became markers of identity in the wake of Partition.
She also collaborates with the Recovering Auraria’s Past project and Displaced Aurarians to interpret the history of displacement that built Auraria Campus through a digital walking tour that will be available in June 2026. Indira presented on this work at the Research and Creative Arts Symposium (RaCAS). Her presentation on using oral history to understand displacement and reclaim Denver’s Old Westside was awarded the Colorado Community Impact Judged Award, acknowledging her work’s impact on her community.
Her advisor, Dr. Steven Vose, commends her skills as a graduate student, reflecting on how she creatively bridges Public History methods with rigorous archival research. Dr. Michelle Comstock, Associate Professor of English and collaborator within the Recovering Auraria’s Past project, commends Indira’s "theoretically grounded approach to civic engagement," which she describes as an “ethic of care.”
Indira continues to help uplift voices from the community. She is working with History Colorado on the Portrait of Colorado at 150 Storytelling Initiative, which is a statewide storytelling initiative focused on documenting, preserving, and sharing the diverse lived experiences of communities across Colorado.
The department is proud of Indira’s wonderful accomplishments and knows she will continue to excel at all of her future endeavors. Congratulations Indira!