Bio

Dr. Roopa Bala Singh is a fourth-generation attorney focusing on property law. Roopa is a founding legal scholar of Critical Yoga Theory, which bridges studies of yoga, race, and the law. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Law and Civic Engagement at CSU Monterey Bay, where she teaches law, race, and gender. Her recent UC Press article traces yoga as racial property through U.S. popular music history. Roopa is a licensed attorney, with a law degree from UC Berkeley, a Masters in Cinema Studies from NYU, and a Ph.D. in Justice and Social Inquiry from ASU. Roopa’s nationwide panel project (SAAPYA: South Asian American Perspectives on Yoga, 2013-2016) was the first public discourse site on race and cultural appropriation in yoga. As a result of this groundbreaking work, Roopa was appointed as the first South Asian American advisor to Yoga Alliance and gave the keynote at UC Berkeley’s Race and Yoga Conference. Commitments to anti-racist liberation have been a central part of Roopa’s lifelong career in social justice and prison law. Roopa is currently at work on her first book, "One Breath at a Time: Yoga and U.S. Law."