Anirban Karak is a Harper-Schmidt Fellow and Collegiate Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago, where he teaches in the Social Sciences Core of the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds masters degrees in economics from both Jadavpur University and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a PhD in History from New York University. Anirban grew up in the city of Calcutta, where he studied the violin first with the late Ananta Makhal (1937-2012) at the Oxford Mission, Behala, and subsequently with Abraham Mazumder (b.1958) at the Abraham Mazumder Academy of Music. He performed at numerous venues both in India and abroad with the Oxford Mission Orchestra and the Kolkata Music Academy Chamber Orchestra.