Dr. Ginu Zacharia Oommen is the Chairperson of the Kerala State Food Commission. He is a former Member of the Kerala Public Service Commission (2017-2023), a body created by the Constitution of India to select applicants for civil service jobs in the state. Presently he is a Visiting Professor at the International Institute of Migration and Development (IIMAD), Trivandrum.  Prior to this he was a Visiting Professor at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’homme (FMSH), Paris(2016). He held various fellowships and has been a Visiting Faculty/Visiting Professor at many illustrious universities and think-tanks of repute across the world.

Dr. Oommen has had the distinction of being a Hermes Post-Doctoral Fellow(2009) at MIGRINTER (the Centre for International Migration), University of Poitiers- France and an Associate Fellow at the Maison des Sciences de l’homme (MSH), Paris(2009), and a Junior Fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library- New Delhi (2013) . He was a Consultant of World Bank (2015-2016) on Gender and Migration. At the beginning of his career, he served as a Fellow at Indian Council for World Affairs (New Delhi, 2008), and India Centre for Migration (New Delhi) and was a Senior Fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient, (2014) , the reputed research centre based in Berlin, as well as being a Visiting Faculty at the Gulf Studies Programme (JNU. 2011) and Sichuan University (China, 2010). A Graduate Fellow of the Rothberg International School, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2000), Dr. Oommen had also been a Visiting Junior Research Fellow at The Harry S Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2004).

Dr. Oommen completed Masters in Political Science from Madras Christian College (MCC) and PhD from the Centre of West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi on the Jews of Cochin in Israel (2006). His research areas are migration and international development, with a special focus on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and South Asia. His areas of specialization include South Asia- Gulf Migration, India-West Asian Relations, Israeli Foreign Policy, Indian Jewish History, global migration ad refugee studies, social remittances and identity, transnational religious organisations. He has conducted extensive field research in Israel, Palestine, France, Kuwait, and Kerala. He has published extensively in academic journals and leading newspapers in India.

Oommen’s major publications include: Ethnicity, Marginality and Identity: The Jews of Cochin in Israel (Manak, 2011), South Asian Migration to Gulf Countries: History, Policies, Development (co-edited, Routledge, 2015), Asianization of Migrant Workers in the Gulf Countries (edited Springer, 2019). His forthcoming edited anthology is The Social Dynamics of Migration : Emerging Identities and Culture in Kerala”.