Prof. Ananta Giri spent a year at the Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation (August 1993 to August 1994). Prior to that he had worked as a lecturer in Anthropology at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad and in Sociology at the Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He joined the institute in the final stages of his doctoral work (Anthropology) on Habitat for Humanity, the US ecumenical movement, at the Johns Hopkins University.