Vyjayanthi V. Rao is an anthropologist, writer, artist, and curator, currently teaching at the Yale School of Architecture. Her work focuses on the built environment and urbanism in India and the United States. She has published extensively on these subjects and currently serves as Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Public Culture (Duke University Press). Her curatorial projects include the exhibition Multiplicity as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2022) and Seeking Refuge and Making Home at the Center for Architecture in New York (2023). She has participated as an artist in the Kochi Biennale (2016), the Venice Architecture Biennale (2021), the Chicago Architecture Biennale (2023) and in the Berlinale Film Festival (2025). Her current projects include Beneath the Placid Lake, a film installation and lecture performance developed in collaboration with filmmaker Kush Badhwar.

Rao received her PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago and has held teaching positions at Yale University, The New School for Social Research and the City College of New York.