Sunil Amrith Age, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Bio/Wiki
Full Name	Sunil S. Amrith
Profession(s)	• Teacher • Author • Historian
Physical Stats
Eye Colour	Black
Hair Colour	Black
Career
Awards	• Infosys Prize in Humanities for contributions to the fields of the history of migration, environmental history, the history of international public health, and the history of contemporary Asia (2016) • MacArthur Fellowship (2017) • Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for History to honour "his search for the historical origins of the great inequality that exists between and within countries" (2022) • Falling Walls Foundation Science Breakthrough of the Year award for "Breaking the Wall to Reimagining Environmental Justice in Historical Perspective" (2022) • British Academy Fellowship (2024) • Fukuoka Academic Prize (2024) • Toynbee Prize (2024) • British Academy Book Prize for his book The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years (2025) • Dayton Literary Peace Prize for the book The Burning Earth (2025)
Personal Life
Date of Birth	4 September 1979 (Tuesday)
Age (as of 2025)	46 Years
Birthplace	Nairobi, Kenya
Zodiac sign	Virgo
Nationality	American
Hometown	Singapore
College/University	University of Cambridge, England
Educational Qualification(s)	• B.A. (October 1997 to June 2000) • Ph.D. (October 2001 to June 2005)
Social Media	• Instagram • Twitter • LinkedIn
Relationships & More
Marital Status	Married
Family
Wife/Spouse	Ruth Coffey (British barrister, lecturer at the Harvard Law School)
Children	Son- Theodore Daughter- Lydia Rupa
Parents	Father- (banker) Mother- (eye surgeon)
Siblings	Sister- Megha Amrith (anthropologist)

Some Lesser Known Facts About Sunil Amrith

• His parents were born in India. His father belongs to Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, and studied in Mumbai, India. His mother belongs to Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, and studied medicine in Thanjavur and then in Delhi, India.

• Later, his parents migrated to Kenya from India.

• In 1980, they shifted from Kenya to Singapore, where Sunil Amrith grew up and earned his education.

• As a child, he travelled to many parts of India and Southeast Asia with his parents.

• This made him interested in how different cultures meet and blend.

• While growing up, Sunil Amrith observed the places where trade and migration came together.

• In 2006, he started working as a Senior Lecturer and Reader in modern Asian History at Birkbeck, University of London. He served in the role till 2015.

• In 2006, Sunil Amrith published the book Decolonising International Health: India and Southeast Asia.
  

  The cover of the book Decolonising International Health India and Southeast Asia (2006)

• He then went on to publish many books such as Migration and Diaspora in Modern Asia (2011), Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (2013), Sites of Asian Interaction: Ideas, Networks and Mobility (2014), Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History (2018), and The Burning Earth: A History (2024).
  

  The cover of the book The Burning Earth: A History (2024)

• In 2015, Sunil Amrith moved to the United States from London, United Kingdom.

• In July 2015, he started working as a Mehra Family Professor of South Asian Studies and Professor of History at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.

• From 2019 to 2020, Sunil Amrith served as a co-director of the Joint Centre for History and Economics at Harvard and the University of Cambridge.

• During this period, he also served as an interim director of the Mahindra Humanities Centre of Harvard University.

• In 2019, Sunil Amrith was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize for his book Unruly Waters: How Rains, Rivers, Coasts and Seas Have Shaped Asia’s History (2018). The book explains how water affected the way India and its neighbours grew in politics and the economy.

• In July 2020, he was appointed as the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.
  

  Sunil Amrith while teaching

• In January 2024, Sunil Amrith was appointed as a Professor of the Environment at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, United States.

• In March 2025, he became the Henry R. Luce Director of Yale’s Whitney and Betty MacMillan Centre for International and Area Studies.

• In July 2025, Sunil Amrith was appointed as Vice Provost for International Affairs at Yale University, New York City.
  

  Sunil Amrith while studying a map

• He loves jazz music.

• In October 2025, Sunil Amrith came into the limelight when he won the British Academy Book Prize for his book The Burning Earth: An Environmental History of the Last 500 Years.