Lekha Samant is a PhD candidate in the Governance and Inclusive Development (GID) and Urban Planning (UP) programme groups of the AISSR. Her research focuses on the question of water justice through a comparative analysis of everyday life and spatial planning systems for flood adaptation in the cities of Mumbai and Amsterdam. Her PhD, supervised by Dr. Hebe Verrest, Dr. Karen Paiva Henrique and Dr Jannes Willems, is a part of the larger project ‘Urban Blue Justice: Planning Climate Justice in Urban Blue Spaces across the global North and South (2023-2028)'.

Lekha holds a MSc in Urban Planning and Policy Design from Politecnico di Milano, Italy and a Bachelor in Architecture from Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture & Environmental Studies, University of Mumbai, India. Prior to embarking on her PhD journey at UvA, she practiced as a researcher and analyst in Mumbai, working on inter-disciplinary research projects in urban studies and planning with academic institutions, urban collectives and legal advocacy organisations, including the Tata Institute for Social Sciences (TISS), Collective for Spatial Alternatives (CSA) Housing & Land Rights Network (HLRN), and Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) in Mumbai. Her previous academic research (MSc thesis) focused on the social function and planning of the university through a comparative study of student housing on higher education campuses in the U.S, U.K, Italy and India. Her design dissertation in architecture (B.Arch thesis) focused on the ecology and architecture of the coaching industry for students in Kota, India. In addition to her academic pursuits, she is also a trained Kathak dancer, having earned a graduate diploma (Visharad) with first class honours from Akhil Bhartiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal, India.