Dr. Apurva Bhatt, a psychiatrist at assistant professor at Stanford University, specializes in early psychosis evaluation and treatment. She works at Lucille Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford Health Care, contributes to early psychosis programs, and is a mentor through various psychiatric associations. Her research focuses on early psychosis, youth mental health, and suicide prevention.

Deepak Ramola, a wisdom historian and award-winning educator, co-teaches MIT's ‘Meaning of Life’ course. A Harvard GSE graduate, he was the Kindness Ambassador for UNESCO MGIEP. Founder of Project FUEL, Deepak has collected life lessons from 195 countries and authored three bestselling books.

Dinsha Mistree is a Research Fellow at the Huntington Program on Strengthening U.S.-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, an affiliated scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and an affiliated scholar at the Neukom Center on the Rule of Law at Stanford Law School.

Dr. Mistree studies the political economy of development, with a special focus on India. In this context, he works on topics related to education, healthcare delivery, economic growth, political rights, and institutional reform. He also maintains a policy focus on the US-India relationship. Dr. Mistree holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton and an S.B. and an S.M. from MIT.

Ferose heads the SAP Academy for
Engineering in San Ramon. He formerly headed the Globalization Services unit and
was responsible for enabling the global adoption of SAP products worldwide. Ferose co-authored the #1 Bestseller The Invisible Majority: India’s Abled Disabled and another best-selling book GIFTED: Inspiring Stories of People with Disabilities. Along with that Ferose is the founder of the India Inclusion Foundation a Bengaluru based nonprofit that aims
to bring the topic of inclusion to the forefront in India.

Jaya Padmanabhan is an editor at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, working with journalists in California to cover health and health equity issues for communities of color. She is a veteran journalist with bylines in The New York Times, PBS Next Avenue, The San Francisco Examiner, The Boston Globe, Forbes, Seattle Times, India Currents, Ethnic Media Services, The Hindu, and more. Jaya is the author of “Transactions of Belonging,” a collection of short stories published in 2014. Several stories from the collection received individual awards, including the prestigious Lorian Hemingway Prize for short fiction. Over her career, she has garnered over 30 accolades in journalism and fiction, most recently the Writer's Digest Award for an essay on caregiving and the PageTurner Award for her novel in progress.

Kaustuv Basu is a journalist in Washington, D.C., where he works as a reporter for Bloomberg Industry Group. He has covered the U.S. Congress, tax policy, the Maryland state house in Annapolis and even city council meetings in Saratoga. In his spare time, Basu likes to bike, go birding and watch gangster movies.

Nayomi Munaweera is an award-winning novelist. Her debut, Island of a Thousand Mirrors, won the Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region and was shortlisted for the DSC Prize and Man Asia Prizes. It was chosen as a Target Book Club book. Her second novel What Lies Between Us, won the Sri Lankan National Book Award and was shortlisted for the Northern California Book Prize. The Huffington Post raved, “Munaweera’s prose is visceral and indelible, devastatingly beautiful-reminiscent of the glorious writings of Louise Erdrich, Amy Tan and Alice Walker, who also find ways to truth-tell through fiction.” She is proud of all her writing students from various MFAs and in her Writing Covens.

Padma Dorje Maitland is the Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator, Art of the Indian Subcontinent, at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He holds dual doctoral degrees in Architectural History and South Asian Studies from UC Berkeley and a MArch from Princeton. He has curated shows at BAMPFA, LACMA, Mia, and mostly recently co-curated After Hope: Videos of Resistance at the Asian Art Museum and Peabody Essex Museum. His publications include the edited volume Art, Hope, Action: Creative Praxis in Pandemic Times.

Rekha Rodwittiya is India's top contemporary artist. She completed her graduation from The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda in 1981. She then received the Inlaks scholarship for her M.A. in Painting from Royal College of Art, London in 1984. In 1988-89 she was invited as guest artist to the Konsthogskolan, Stockholm and was also invited to deliver series of lectures on Indian Art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Grenoble and Castello de Rivoli, Torino in 1991. She did a short stint at the Fullam Institute on Film and Video, and was conferred the Staff Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation Asian Cultural Council to work in the U.S. in 1990.

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Sharika Thiranagama is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Stanford. Her research is in Sri Lanka and in Kerala, South India. her 2011 book In My Mother’s House: Civil War in Sri Lanka 2011 was on civil war, political violence, militancy, displacement, militarization and intergenerational and gendered relations for Sri Lankan Tamil and Sri Lankan Muslim minorities.

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https://anthropology.stanford.edu/people/sharika-thiranagama

Dr. Anjali Arondekar is Peggy and Jack Baskin Foundation Presidential Professor of Feminist Studies. She was the founding Director, Center for South Asian Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, 2020-24. Her research engages the comparative poetics and politics of sexuality, caste, and historiography, with a focus on Indian Ocean Studies and South Asia. She is the author of For the Record: On Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India (Duke University Press, 2009, Orient Blackswan, India, 2010),  and Abundance: Sexuality’s History (Duke University Press, 2023, Orient Blackswan, 2023), and is currently working on a third project, tentatively entitled, Oceanic Sex: Archives of Caste and Indenture, that couples the archival forms of indenture with the oceanic voyages of caste and sexuality.

Dr. Sanchita Banerjee Saxena is a thought leader on business and human rights and on the social dimensions of corporate sustainability. She is currently a Senior Advisor to Article One, a specialized strategy and management consultancy, and a professional faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business, the Energy and Resources Group, and the Legal Studies department, where she teaches classes about business, labor and global supply chains. Sanchita is passionate about eclectic cuisines and enjoys experiencing new recipes from around the globe, visiting interesting and innovative restaurants, and learning from chefs during her travels. In 2022, Sanchita was a guest on Check Please! Bay Area an award winning restaurant review series on KQED.

Sanjog spent her formative years in Mussoorie and the Doon Valley in Northern India.  In 1987, Sanjog and her family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, soon after, her mother Sukhi Singh started a venture, Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Foods with the help of the family.  Sanjog got her an early introduction to the food business as part-time help in the family business.  After finishing her schooling at UC Berkeley, Sanjog ventured out in the world of consulting and marketing, only to return in 2006 and join her mother full-time. 

Sanjog Singh has spent the last 17 years in marketing at Sukhi’s Gourmet Indian Foods and seen the company through its transformation from a family-run business to a nationally recognized consumer packaged goods (CPG) company.

Malaviya is an Indian american poet, writer and publisher. She is co-founder of the Great Indian Poetry collective, a mentorship model press publishing powerful voices from India & the Indian diaspora. Her poetry has been nominated for the pushcart prize and featured in catamaran, PLUME, Prairie Schooner & other fine publications.

Shwanika Narayan is an Assistant Arts Editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, overseeing arts and culture coverage. Prior to this, she spent a decade as a business reporter covering tech, small business and inequity issues.

Šumit Ganguly is a Distinguished Research Fellow and the Director of the Huntington Program on Strengthening the US-India Partnership at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He was previously a Distinguished Professor of Political Science and the Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations Emeritus at Indiana University, Bloomington. His two most recent books are The Sino-Indian Rivalry: Implications for Global Order (with Manjeet S. Pardesi and William R. Thompson) and The Troubling State of India’s Democracy (co-edited with Dinsha Mistree and Larry Diamond). He is the current Editor-in-Chief of the International Studies Review, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Tipu Purkayastha is a Bay Area-based HR professional who has grown up in Calcutta amongst a variety of books, movies, music, theater & sports.  He tries to recreate this mileu in his Northern California life now, where outside of work & family, he is fully immersed in his various arts related passions.  He is a Board Member of the South Bay Musical Theater in Saratoga, & hosts interviews with film writers & sports personalities on YouTube, & has recently started a sports-related podcast on YouTube with a friend called The Khel Khel Men.  Tipu is delighted to be back as a moderator for the fourth time at SALA, & being able to present the best of South Asian culture to the local community.

Srisruthi (Sri) Ramesh is the co-founder of Brown Girl Bookshelf (BGB), a platform to share books and digital media by South Asian creators. BGB is a growing community of over 28,000 across social media and a monthly newsletter. Sri’s favorite genres are historical fiction and memoirs. She also enjoys hiking, cooking, and working to improve women’s health.

Classically trained in the arts, industrial design, and architecture, Tarik Currimbhoy is a trifecta of artistic prowess. Having earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Master of Architecture from the Pratt Institute, as well as a Master of Arts from Cornell University, Tarik later went on to teach at both institutions (Drawing at Cornell and Design at Pratt).