LEONARDOS

ANURADHA PARIKH

Anuradha Parikh the founder and artistic director of the G5A Foundation for Contemporary Culture. She is a cultural practitioner, practicing architect, production designer, and film producer, who studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Parsons School of Design, New School for Social Research.

She began her architecture career by working with Kalla Cicognani Architects, Rajeev Sethi, and Charles Correa. After this, she set up her own multidisciplinary practice, MATRIX Architecture and Design in 1991.

JIGNESH KHAKHAR

Jignesh Khakhar is the Dean of the National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar Campus. He is an Architect of Environments (Spaces, Places, and Objects) and Information (Data, Interface, and Interaction Design).

He received his Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from the Leicester School of Architecture and his Doctoral degree from the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. At the National Institute of Design, he has led significant transformational academic and administrative initiatives in research, education, publications, admissions and space.

MUKUND THATTAI

Mukund Thattai is the Academic Head at the National Centre for Biological Sciences. He obtained a BA in Physics from Cornell University in 1999, and a PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004.

His laboratory at NCBS uses both experimental and computational techniques to study how cells work. He is deeply involved in public engagement efforts and art/science collaborations, working with conceptual artists and theatre practitioners to explore the practice of biology and its impact on society.

RANJIT HOSKOTE

Ranjit Hoskote is a curator, critic and the author of more than 25 books, ranging across poetry, art criticism, cultural history, and poetry in translation.

He has been a writer-in-residence at Villa Waldberta, Munich (2003), Theater der Welt, Essen/Mülheim (2010) and the Polish Institute, Berlin (2010). He has been a research scholar-in- residence at BAK/basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2010 and 2013). As a curator of contemporary art, he has organized 30 exhibitions since 1993. He co-curated the 7th Gwangju Biennale (Korea, 2008), and he was the curator of India’s first-ever national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

SHOBHANA NARASIMHAN

Shobhana Narasimhan is a Professor of Theoretical Sciences at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research. She obtained her Msc from IIT Bombay and her PhD from Harvard University. After doing postdoctoral work at Brookhaven National Laboratory, USA, and the Fritz Haber Institut, Berlin, Germany, she joined the faculty of JNCASR in 1996.

Her area of research is computational nanoscience. She has a strong interest in improving diversity in the scientific community, and in this context she has been conducting workshops for women in science, and teaching physics in developing countries.