Anthony Acciavatti works at the intersection of landscape and the history of science and technology. He is the author of Ganges Water Machine: Designing New India’s Ancient River (2015), which is the first comprehensive mapping and environmental history of the Ganges River Basin in over half a century. In 2016 the Foundation for Landscape Studies awarded Ganges Water Machine the John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize.
 
To write Ganges Water Machine, Acciavatti designed his own instruments to map the choreography of soils, cities, and agriculture across the river basin. In 2023, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired these instruments, along with his original drawings and photographs, for the permanent collection. These works will be exhibited at the new Victoria and Albert Museum in East London in 2025.
 
His work has been exhibited at the Milan Triennial, biennials in Venice, Seoul, Rotterdam, Quito, as well as at the Nehru Science Museum, Rhode Island School of Design, Harvard University, and Columbia University. Acciavatti has received grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, MacDowell, Lopud Foundation, Ford Foundation, Princeton University, Fulbright, Harvard University, Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, and the Program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University.
 
His second book, Building a Republic of Villages, which looks at the histories of science and environmental design in South Asia from the 1890s-1970s, will be published next year. He is the inaugural Diana Balmori Assistant Professor at Yale University and leader of Ganges Lab at Collaborative Earth.