Surabhi Balachander grew up in Indiana, was a longtime staff member at Stanford University's Bill Lane Center for the American West, and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Balachander's research and teaching interests bridge comparative ethnic studies and the environmental humanities in 20th and 21st century American literature. Her current book project seeks to define rural identity in American literature from 1920-2020, the U.S.'s first century as a majority-urban nation, and shows that rural America, in contrast to popular stereotypes, is best understood as multiethnic and cosmopolitan. Her work appears in ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment and Western American Literature.