Amrita Tripathi

Amrita Tripathi is a writer, a former news anchor and the founder-editor of The Health Collective, a platform dedicated to spreading awareness about mental health, through first-person stories, original reportage and interviews with experts. She writes contemporary fiction — both of her novels, Broken News and The Sibius Knot, deal with relationships and the darker side of urban realities. She resides online @amritat and increasingly @healthcollectif.

Avinash De Sousa

Dr. Avinash De Sousa is a consultant psychiatrist, psychotherapist and also a school psychiatrist. Dr. De Sousa is a Research Associate at the Department of Psychiatry, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College, Mumbai, and Founder Trustee of the Desousa Foundation, a trust that works in the area of mental health awareness. He is also an Associate Professor and Secretary at International Institute of Organizational Psychological Medicine, an organization that works in the field of organizational psychological medicine across 7 countries. Dr. De Sousa is an International Faculty for UNESCO Chair in Bioethics, working in over 8 countries. In Mumbai, he works with 10 mainstream and special schools as a Visiting School Psychiatrist, Counselor and School Mental Health Expert. He is also a visiting Faculty and Professor at various Teacher Training Courses across Mumbai and at multiple and psychotherapy training programs across India. He has over 475 publications in national and international journals and is the author of 6 books in the area of mental health.

Devyani Kacker

Devyani Kacker is a development law professional and passionate about international criminal law, transitional justice, human rights, gender equality, child rights and anti-trafficking initiatives. Devyani is currently working with the Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives and teach part-time at the Azim Premji University. Previously, she has worked in the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the International Criminal Court in the Hague, and the United Nations in Pristina, Kosovo and the ECCC in Cambodia. She has also engaged in private practice in New Delhi before the Supreme Court of India, Delhi High Court and trial courts in the areas of constitutional and criminal law. She is a dual qualified lawyer- India and New York. She received a Master’s Degree in Law from Columbia Law School. She is a founder member of an NGO supporting youth and children's rights in Delhi and closely associated with a number of other NGOs in India.

Kirthi Jayakumar

Kirthi Jayakumar is an activist, artist, entrepreneur and writer from Chennai, India. She founded and runs the Gender Security Project (previously known as Red Elephant Foundation), a civilian peacebuilding initiative that works for gender equality through storytelling, advocacy and digital interventions. She also founded and runs fynePRINT, a feminist e-publishing imprint. She is a member of the Youth Working Group for Gender Equality under the UN IANYD. Kirthi is the recipient of the US Presidential Services Medal (2012) for her services as a volunteer to Delta Women NGO, and the two-time recipient of the UN Online Volunteer of the Year Award (2012, 2013). Her second book, The Dove’s Lament, made it to the final shortlist for the Muse India Young Writers’ Literary Award. Kirthi coded an app for survivors of gender-based violence called Saahas, which works as a web and mobile app. Her works have been commissioned by corporate establishments, nonprofits and art collectors world over, and has been published in The Guardian and the TIME Magazine.

Swarnima Bhattacharya

Swarnima is the founder of TheaCare (Formerly known as Women’s Healthline), a platform for women to discuss their health and bodies, with experts and communities. She also works as a Gender and Mental Health Consultant with companies. She is a Do School Fellow and a Women Deliver Young Leader.

Sweekar Trivedi

Sweekar Trivedi is currently a Justice Advocate General in the Indian army. He has been a lawyer at Manilal Kher Ambalal and a Trustee at Troy Foundation, which works towards the welfare of underprivileged children and women. Troy Foundation raises funds and diverts them towards organisations undertaking social welfare activities. Sweekar has an Honours degree in Commerce from HR College, Mumbai, and a degree in Law from Durham University, UK. He has previously headed the Syrian Legal Development Programme at Durham University for two years where he undertook research related activities. Furthermore, he founded a project called ‘Yours Sincerely’ which strives to protect the interests of the children of sex workers and children with disabilities, in Mumbai. He has worked at several human rights organisations across the world, notably in Nepal, UK and Cambodia. His work primarily entailed assisting in drafting model legislation, researching, interviewing survivors of human rights violations and participating in peaceful demonstrations.

Vibhuti Patel

Prof. Vibhuti Patel worked at Advanced Centre for Women's Studies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences from 1-7-2017 to 30-6-2020 after her superannuation from SNDT Women's University, Mumbai on 30-6-2017. She has done Ph.D. in Economics, University of Mumbai. She was awarded a Visiting Fellowship to the London School of Economics and Political Science from Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK in 1992-93. She has authored and co-authored 12 books; edited and co-edited 9 books and contributed over 100 papers as chapters in various books edited by others.

Abhijeet Asok

Abhijith holds a Masters program in Health Data Science at Harvard University and a Masters in Mathematics from BITS Pilani. He carries Data Science as his ardent passion and finds excitement in the cryptic nature of Data and what it withholds underneath. Previously he was the Head Data Scientist of Safecity, which fights gender-based violence using data analytics in multiple countries. He carries in his repertoire, academic and professional exploration with programming and data tools such as R, Python, Tableau, Spark etc, across datasets in healthcare, real estate, communications, media and more. Currently he is working at Microsoft.

Akhila Kholisetty

Akhila is a lawyer, feminist policy advocate, and writer based in New York. She is the Co-Director of End Cyber Abuse, a global collective of human rights lawyers and activists working to end online gendered violence. She has previously consulted and worked internationally on access to justice, women’s rights, and the legal empowerment of marginalized communities in Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Sierra Leone. She is passionate about making justice systems more responsive and accessible to survivors of gender-based violence. In Brooklyn, NY, she provided legal representation to survivors of domestic violence, including survivors of image-based sexual abuse and cyber violence. She was previously a Presidential Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, and then a consultant with the Open Society Justice Initiative in Nepal. She holds a Bachelor’s in Economics and Political Science from Northwestern University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Amal Sethi

Dr. Amal Sethi is a Fellow at The University of Pennsylvania where he researches on democracy, courts, and constitutions. Over the years, he has worked, taught, and written on topics across a gamut of social, political, and legal issues. Amal has been involved in several capacities with different governmental and intergovernmental agencies ranging from USAID and the US Department of Commerce to UNESCO, UNDP, UN Women, UNHCHR, and The SDG Fund. He has advised sovereign governments on constitution-making and at international tribunals such as the International Court of Justice. Currently, Amal also serves on the board of the non-profit Dagar-Pathway which works towards prisoner rehabilitation. Amal holds a Doctor of Laws and Master of Laws from The University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Laws from Government Law College.

Ashish Korday

Ashish Korday holds a degree in MSW from Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work. Mumbai and MA (Clinical Psychology) from IGNOU. He is trained in Transactional Analysis and Gestalt techniques from Avila School of Counselling and ICTA – Institute for Counselling and Transactional Analysis and has completed 40 hours of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and CBT training at Sion Hospital. He is also a yoga therapist and has passed his Diploma in Yogic Education.. HMr. Korday has worked as a yoga coach at the National Institute of Sports, at Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad. He offers programmes for corporates like Larsen and Toubro, Times of India, Glaxo, Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Hindustan Petroleum, Godrej, Mahendra and Mahendra. He also offers programmes for educational institutes like University of Mumbai-NSS unite, SEC day school, Podar, Ruia, Ruparel, Kirti, and NGOs like Akshara, Child Relief and You, Bal Asha Trust.

Deya Bhattacharya

Deya is a human rights lawyer, researcher and writer. She has a B.A. LLB. (International Law Hons.) from KIIT School of Law, Bhubaneswar (India), and an LL.M in Human Rights and International Justice from Central European University, Budapest (Hungary). In the past, Deya has worked at Swasti Health Resource Centre (Bangalore), The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy (Chennai), PILnet (Budapest) and the Open Society Archives (Budapest). Deya's primary interests lie in transitional justice, women's rights and peace-building. Currently, Deya works for Women's Fund Asia, where her work largely involves grant-making and management of grantee-partner relationships in the region. When she is not working or traveling for work, Deya likes to read and write about what she reads; she also loves to bake and to learn new languages.

Ekaterina Yahyaoui

Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko is a Lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights and the Vice-Dean for Research in the College of Business, Public Policy and Law at the National University of Ireland Galway. She has been researching and teaching on issues related to gender and human rights as well as feminist approaches for over ten years. She is the author of several books and articles related to these and other human rights and international law topics, including the forthcoming book ‘Gender and Human Rights: Expanding Concepts’. In 2016 she received the NUI Galway President’s award for research excellence. Her expertise is regularly solicited by various bodies, notably she was selected as an independent expert evaluator for EU Horizon 2020 programmes.

Havovi Hyderabadwalla

Havovi Hyderabadwalla is a Clinical and Forensic Psychologist. She has completed a Masters’ degree in Forensic Psychology Studies from the University of York, UK and a Masters’ degree in Clinical Psychology from S.N.D.T University. She has been a full time lecturer at S.N.D.T Women’s University and National Association of the Blind. She has been a visiting faculty at National College, S.N.D.T Women’s University, Jai Hind College, St. Xavier’s College and Thakur College. She is the founder at Mind Mandala that offers integrated psychological services and organizes several workshops, seminar programs and trainings for students & professionals. She also has her own private practice with clinical testing and psychotherapy. She has served as a trainer and consulting psychologist for FACTS – Forensic Advise Consultancy and Training Services. She considers the knowledge of psychology as a powerful tool that improves lives. Enthusiastic about teaching and through it, she aims to make this knowledge more accessible.

Janki Mehta

Janki Mehta is a Consulting Psychotherapist and visiting faculty at undergraduate and postgraduate colleges. She has completed a Masters’ degree in Career and Developmental Counseling from S.N.D.T Women’s University. She teaches at The National Association of the Blind. She has been an external examiner at various universities.Apart from being trained in several clinical modalities, she is also a certified hypnotherapist. She is the co-founder at Mind Mandala that offers integrated psychological services and organizes several workshops, seminars and students & professionals training programs. She loves working with individuals interested in self-empowerment and is equally passionate about the holistic development of the self. She is a skilled and solution oriented mental health care professional with her individual therapy practice since the past 8 years.

Jhuma Sen

Jhuma is an Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School and an Assistant Director, Centre for Human Rights Studies at O.P. Jindal Global University. She is also one of the co-convenors of the Indian Feminist Judgments Project, an academic activist project that ‘rights’ judicial decisions by employing a feminist lens. Jhuma holds an undergraduate law degree from Symbiosis Law School (Pune), and a postgraduate law degree from University of California (Berkeley) as an American Association of University Women's International Fellow. She has held visiting fellowships at Cornell University (USA), York University (Canada), International Institute for the Sociology of Law (Oñati) to name a few. She has also been part of Harvard Law School's Institute of Global Law and Policy (IGLP), King's College London's Transnational Law Summer Institute (TLSI) and Brown University's Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI). Currently Jhuma is a Future of Change Research Fellow at the Faculty of Law of the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Maninder Singh

Maninder is passionate about the impact of engagement through mixed method research to create change and uses the same lense to advocate for inclusive development for SDG 6. He is the Co-founder and Head (Partnerships) at YWater, an organisation which champions youth engagement in driving sustainable water and sanitation solutions for India.

Nandini Ramanujam

Professor Nandini Ramanujam is the Executive Director and Director of Programs of the Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism at McGill University's Faculty of Law. She also directs the International Human Rights Internship Program as well as Independent Human Rights Internships Program. She is the McGill representative for the Scholars at Risk Network and is a member of the Steering Committee of the Scholars at Risk Network, Canada section. Nandini Ramanujam’s research and teaching interests include Law and Development, Institutions and Governance, Economic Justice, Food Security and Food Safety, the role of civil society and the Fourth Estate (Media) in promotion of the rule of law, as well as the exploration of interconnections between field based human rights work and theoretical discourses.

Poonam Choksi

Poonam is passionate about working in the education sector to bring about a tangible transformation in the quality of schooling every child experiences across the country. She currently works at A.T.E. Chandra Foundation, which aims to create templates for solving various societal problems, with a data driven approach. Prior to this, Poonam worked as a Senior Manager at UnLtd India.

Prapti Patel

Prapti joined the social sector because she feels that India’s “growth story” is leaving behind those who live on the margins. She hopes to work on large-scale and collaborative system change at the intersections of law, justice and development. Within the Strategic Philanthropy team at Dasra, Prapti works closely with new and experienced philanthropists to help structure their giving philosophy and bring them closer to the impact they seek to create.

Pukhraj Ranjan

Pukhraj Ranjan is an Indian education & social innovation advocate based out of Helsinki, Finland. She is the Head of Community & Impact, HundrED, a not-for-profit working to seek and share inspiring innovations in global education. She has also been recognized as an Emerging Leader by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) by Qatar Foundation. With 10 years of experience in the education and development sector, Pukhraj believes in holistic education, lifelong learning and community/collective power at the core of all social, economic, personal and spiritual change. She has pursued her Bachelors in Business Administration from Symbiosis University (India) and Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Jyväskylä (Finland). In her current role as the Head of Community & Impact, she aims to break human barriers, surpass geographical boundaries and weave communities inclusive of youth to ensure all children, despite their demographics, have access to innovative and impactful pedagogies that help them flourish in life.

Raghav Mendiratta

Raghav is a lawyer enrolled with the Bar Council of Delhi. He is an alumnus of the London School of Economics, Annenberg-Oxford Policy Institute and National Law University, Punjab. He has been a long-term Researcher for the Columbia Global Freedom of Expression and the Stanford Centre for Internet and Society. He is the Co-Founder of JAAGO Foundation, an organisation aimed at spreading legal literacy amongst underprivileged women and children. Raghav is passionate about issues of gender justice, human rights, criminal law and media law. His thoughts on these issues have been published by the Oxford Human Rights Hub, University of Pennsylvania, Journal of the Indian Law Institute, the Indian Express, among others.

Raghu Appasani

Raghu Appasani graduated from Wesleyan University in 2012 with a Bachelors of Arts in Neuroscience & Behavior and Science in Society. While at Wesleyan, Raghu founded The MINDS Foundation, served on the University’s Academic Honor Board, was a Director of the Wesleyan Investment Group, founded a student committee for the Patricelli Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and was a member of Shakti (South Asian Student Group). Raghu has extensive scientific research experience. For his neuroscientific research, he received the Intel Science Talent Search Semifinalist Award, the Sanofi-Aventis BioGENEius International Finalist Award, and the Genzyme Award. Raghu has a true passion for social entrepreneurship and has been recognized as a One Young World Delegate and Ambassador, StartingBloc Fellow, Nexus Youth Delegate, Kellogg Innovation Network Member, a Dell Top 40 Semi-Finalist, and was a semifinalist in MassChallenge. Raghu has over 12 academic publications, has co-edited four scientific books, has given over 10 poster presentations, and has given over 20 talks on mental health, entrepreneurship, and global health.

Richa Vashista

Richa is a mental health professional, queer affirmative and trauma informed. She has a post graduate degree in Clinical Psychology from SNDT University, Mumbai and works at the intersections of gender and sexuality. Richa provides counseling and psychotherapy, speaks at various forums, conducts training and workshops on mental healthcare and LGBTQIA+ sensitization for colleges and work spaces.

Riddhi K Shah

Sharda Vishwanathan

Sharda is a development sector professional, having worked in areas as diverse as urban planning, governance, gender empowerment and social enterprise, Sharda is passionate about using the digital space for empowering the society and improving citizen participation at varied levels. She strongly believes in the power of education and the ways in which it can act as a catalyst in empowering communities. It is this belief that has been instrumental in her choice of working within the education domain.

Suhani Bhushan

Suhani Bhushan is a Diversity and Inclusion enthusiast. She is a Indo-Canadian who now lives in the Netherlands. She believes that all spaces should embody inclusion within their core institution. Suhani has worked with CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, headquartered in South Africa, for almost 6 years. She is the Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator and aims to encourage inclusive commitments across civil society.

Taniya D'silva

Taniya D'silva brings in 9 years of work experience in the development sector at the intersection of fundraising, sales and project management. Currently, she works as an Engagement Manager at Sattva where she straddles sales and project delivery as part of the Non-profit Advisory team. Prior to Sattva, she worked at Atma as Business Development Manager to raise funds for the organisation and its portfolio accelerator grantees. Taniya holds a Masters Degree in Literary and Cultural Studies from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, a Masters in Social Entrepreneurship from the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai. Outside of work, Taniya loves reading, naps at odd hours of the day and playing with her joyful foster cat, Yogi boy.

Pragya Lodha

Pragya is a Clinical Psychologist who aspires to identify herself as an Early Career Researcher. She is also ardent about non fiction reading, poetry, Hindustani music and travel. Pragya likes to channelise her fervour for mental health through therapy practice, research, teaching and community work.