Dr Opinderjit Kaur Takhar is Associate Professor of Sikh Studies and the Director of the multi award winning Centre for Sikh and Panjabi Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, UK. The Centre is the first and the only academic centre of its kind in the UK. She has written several books and papers on Sikhi and produced teaching resources for teaching Sikhi in British schools. Her book on Sikh Identity is used as a key text in a number of Religious Studies courses at Universities around the world. In January 2022, she was elected as President of ‘Theology and Religious Studies UK’ (TRS-UK), as its first ever President of colour. Opinderjit was awarded the MBE in 2018 for her services to Higher Education and to the Sikh and Panjabi community.

More recently, she was honoured as one of 75 women of Indian heritage to have a global impact of her work. She is consultant to the BBC on Sikhi and the Sikhs and has consulted on five BBC One documentaries on the Sikhs. Opinderjit is actively involved in the national and international Sikh community to raise awareness of issues and challenges faced by Sikhs, especially in the UK. Her impactful research work on the representation of Sikhs in the UK was one of the highest scoring case studies at the University of Wolverhampton.