Shaashi Ahlawat is a PhD candidate in the Department of South Asia Studies. Her research interests include South Asian Buddhism, eastern Indian art and architecture, cultural encounters, spatial archaeology, and history writing in South Asia. Shaashi is currently doing her dissertation research on the Nalanda region situated in Bihar (India) focusing on medieval-period encounters between Buddhism, Islam, and regional culture. Her research follows an approach combining archival, epigraphical, archaeological, art-architectural and ethnographic data. Research also employs digital tools such as on-site survey-data collector, mapping applications, and satellite imagery for in-depth analysis of survey data. Previously, Shaashi has been part of an excavation team at Tonle Snguot (Cambodia), and led an year-long archaeological survey project in southern Bihar (India).