Dr. Susmita Das is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fashion Communication at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Mumbai, where she has been serving since 2007. She currently is incherge of the Corporate Communication Cell and has over 22 years of experience in academia. Her areas of expertise include Art and Design History, Clothing History, Aesthetics, Visual Culture, Storytelling, and Branding. Before joining NIFT, she taught as a guest faculty member at several reputed art and design institutions. Her teaching combines historical inquiry with contemporary design perspectives, enabling students to develop critical, creative, and research-oriented approaches to design.
Her research focuses on clothing history, visual culture, and decolonial perspectives on fashion, with particular emphasis on colonial Bengal. She has presented and published research at national and international conferences and in scholarly publications. She is the author of the chapter "Sartorial Traditions of Women in Colonial Bengal" in Textiles from Bengal: A Shared Legacy (Mapin Publishing, 2025). Her paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Design History and Design Studies (ICDHS 2025) at IIT Delhi has been accepted for publication by Springer.
Beyond teaching and research, Dr. Das has held several academic and administrative roles, including Campus Coordinator for Fashion Communication, Craft Initiative Coordinator, Student Development Coordinator, and curriculum development anchor for multiple subjects. She has co-authored and presented research papers with students.