Nikhil Menon is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. He is a historian of modern South Asia, specializing in the political and economic history of twentieth-century India. His first book Planning Democracy: How a Professor, An Institute, and an Idea Shaped India was published in India by Penguin and by the Cambridge University Press in 2022. It was awarded the Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences by the American Institute for Indian Studies.