Dr. Vibhooti Shukla, an esteemed economics and political policy assistant professor, worked at The University of Texas at Dallas from 1987 until her death in 1992.
Born in Bombay, India, Shukla developed an interest in urban environments at a young age. She earned two bachelor’s degrees at the University of Bombay, one in Sanskrit and the other in economics with a focus on urban settings, before coming to the United States. She received a PhD in economics at Princeton University before completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard’s Institute of Economic Research. Her studies focused on agglomeration economies and optimal migration and the factors that make urban formal sector wages in ‘least developed countries’ above market-clearing levels.
She came to UTD after being offered a position as an assistant professor in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. An expert on economic development in urban areas and employment dynamics, Shukla was devoted to identifying trends in spatial restructuring, business cycles in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and environmental consequences of urban concentration.
Her students and colleagues loved the positivity she emanated to those around her. Dr. Edward Harpham, professor emeritus of political science and founding dean of the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College, still considers her a shining example of what someone should be like as a friend and a colleague.
“She was a bright and highly motivated scholar, always bringing the best out in herself and others,” Harpham said. “A superb teacher in the classroom and caring mentor in her office, she always went the extra mile for her students and colleagues. I still feel her loss deeply after 32 years.”
Her legacy lives on through her husband, Dr. Satchit Srinivasan, who established the Vibhooti Shukla Graduate Fellowship and the Vibhooti Shukla Professorship of Economics and Political Economy in her name.
“The students loved her, and she loved them,” Srinivasan said. “She had high ratings as a professor and was incredibly appreciated as somebody who cared about her students. Beyond the classroom, too, she loved her job. I would watch her go two or three days straight on the computer with these enormous spreadsheets filled with different datasets, and she would be singing. It was fun for her.”