Prof. Shankar Das

Pro-Vice Chancellor, TISS

Prof. Shankar Das, Dean, School of Health Systems Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. He has over three decades of experience as a teacher, trainer, researcher, and human resources development practitioner in the field of health and development. His professional skills mainly include public health, health promotion, primary health care, and professional education; he has extensive experience working at the senior level with and within the Government, Public Sector, academia, and organizations at local, state, national, and international levels. He enjoys working in challenging social, political, and physical environments and can work in a multicultural and multi-disciplinary team. Prof. Das had the opportunity to work in some low and high-income countries, such as India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Norway, Finland, Japan, the UK, and the USA. Read More

Mr. Aashu Calapa

Retired HR Professional 

Mr. Aashu Calapa, is an industry leader in HR with more than 24 years of work experience in organizations such as Wipro, Firstsource Solutions and Redbus. He has also worked in the social sector with The Live Love Laugh Foundation (mental health) and Social Venture Partners (sustainable livelihoods). He currently volunteers for Daan Utsav and iVolunteer. He is also a trustee with OBLF and on the advisory board of Sukrupa and Quest Alliance. Aashu is also a promisor with LivingMyPromise.

Ms. Amrita Patwardhan 

Head Education, Tata Trusts

Amrita Patwardhan has been working with Tata Trusts since 2003. She has led design and implementation of two strategic plans, and has set up and managed teams and programmes working on elementary education across multiple states. She has been an Edberg Award recipient, and spent a year as a visiting fellow at the International Development Department of Clark University researching the impact of displacement on children. She also completed a summer course on improving the quality of education systems, from Harvard University in 2007. She has represented Tata Trusts on the National Mission on Libraries, and has been on various expert committees set up by the National Council for Education Research and Training, and Ministry of Human Resource Development to review national programmes on literacy, elementary education and children's literature. Before joining the Trusts, Amrita taught in a primary school and college, and worked as a teacher educator.

Ms. Priya Subbaraman

Co-Founder of Dhiraa SkillDev Foundation

Priya Subbaraman is a seasoned financial services professional with twenty six years in Indian and global financial institutions including stock exchange, investment and commercial banks and securities houses. She is the Co-Founder of Dhiraa SkillDev Foundation. She was the Chief Regulatory Officer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the world’s largest derivatives exchange. She has had stints in Kotak Mahindra, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Standard Chartered Bank, with past Directorships in National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) and NSE Academy Limited.

Ms. Nayantara Sabavala 

Former Director, Program Design – TATA Trusts

Nayantara Sabavala worked for almost a decade in advertising, and during this period initiated and managed the operations of the Lintas Public Service Communication Cell which was set up to provide pro bono communication assistance to non-profit organisations and for government development programs.

She then moved to the development sector and worked for over three decades primarily with Philanthropic Organizations, in areas of management, strategic planning, and program design as part of the senior leadership team. During this period, she initiated work on urban poverty which included a specific focus on migration, and teacher education. Nayantara retired in October 2018 as Director Program Design, Tata Trusts.

Nayantara has been on the Governing Councils of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and National Centre for the Performing Arts as the Nominee of the Tata Trusts; on the Governing Council of the Society for Educational Improvement and Innovation; and Trustee on the Boards of Bharatiya Samaj Seva Kendra and Foundation for Education and Development.

She is also a member of the Governing Board and General Body, PRADAN.

Ms. Mona Kwatra

Co-Founder, 9CoLab Ventures Pvt. Ltd

Ms. Kwatra is a seasoned amplification and integrated marketing advisor across the Marketing, Branding, Impact & Communications ecosystem. With over two decades of experience, she has helped enable business and impact outcomes for companies like L & T Finance, Diageo India, Edelweiss Group, Bank of America and DSP Merrill Lynch. She also helps early-stage Startups access integrated and affordable GoToMarket strategies that help build Scale & Skill with Speed.  In her role as Senior Partner & President of Ketchum Sampark Communications India, she advised clients on their media, digital PR & integrated communication as well as corporate citizenship strategies. She also advises on capacity building for Social & ESG Impact Projects and is a strong advocate for nurturing 'partner-species' (flora & fauna) ecosystems.

Ms. Vrinda Sarup

Retired IAS Officer

Ms. Vrinda Sarup is an IAS officer of the 1981 batch and has held various responsibilities as part of the Indian Government. She has served as Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resources Development and in the Department of Food and Public Distribution. Ms. Sarup has worked in the Education sector for over 23 years, both at the Central and State Governments, where she has rich experience both in implementation and policy-making. She has been closely associated with the formulation and implementation of some of the most significant national programmes such as the District Primary Education Programme, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan for elementary education, and the revised Vocational Education Programme at the Secondary/Senior secondary level. She has played an instrumental role in the revision of pre-service teacher training programmes, national pupil assessment and the assessments of school performance systems.

Prof. Shyam Menon 

Executive Vice President, BML Munjal University

Shyam Menon has been a practitioner of institutional development in higher education. He taught for many years at the University of Delhi,and prior to that at the Indira Gandhi National Open University and the M.S. University of Baroda. He served ten years as Vice Chancellor of Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi leading a team of scholars and professionals in founding the University and setting up several interdisciplinary programmes in the Social Sciences and Humanities. He had been trained in Curriculum Studies, Science Education and Teacher Education. He studied at the University of Kerala and the MS University of Baroda and was later a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at theUniversity of Wisconsin, Madison. He had been on the task force on access to higher education set up by the International Association of Universities, UNESCO. He was Chairman of the Commission for Reforms in Higher Education appointed by the Government of Kerala in 2021-22. He is currently Vice Chancellor of BML Munjal University, Gurgaon. 

Prof. Rekha Pappu

Chairperson - School of Educational Studies, TISS Hyderabad

Prof. Rekha Pappu is the Chairperson of the Azim Premji School of Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Hyderabad. Her research interests are in the areas of education, development, women’s studies and cultural studies.  

Previously, she has been the Coordinator & Director of Anveshi Research Centre for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad (1997 - 2003), Convenor of the Andhra Pradesh Social Watch (2004 – 2005) and Research Consultant with the Higher Education Cell of the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (2007-2010). 

Prof. Rekha Pappu has undertaken study projects and impact assessments for a range of institutions and organisations including the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India; Wipro Applying Thought in Schools (WATIS), Bengaluru, Interchurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO), Netherlands; German Agro Action, Delhi; Oxfam, Hyderabad and Tata Trusts, Mumbai.

Mr. Rajesh Pawar 

CEO, KASMO Inc.

Rajesh is a CEO of KASMO Inc, a provider of digital technology solutions and services. His charter is to help KASMO in fortifying its growth trajectory and advancing with innovative digital transformation initiatives leveraging its Salesforce, Digital Engineering and Data Analytics practices.

Mr. Rajesh Pawar has over 25 years of IT industry experience working with Fortune 500 clients in their Digital Engineering, Customer Experience, Digital Marketing, CRM, Loyalty Programs, Business Intelligence, Mobile Apps, Web Apps (CMS), Cloud and Analytics transformation engagements. In this capacity he heads the Digital Engg. Services Practice for Cigniti, where he is focused on building a world-class team to deliver Digital and Cloud transformation engagements - App Modernization, Native apps Development, Cloud Migration, and Data Modernization.

Prof. Padma Sarangapani

Chairperson, Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education

Prof. Padma M. Sarangapani is the Chairperson of the Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education, and is a Professor of Education at TISS. She has previously been the Dean, School of Education. Prof. Sarangapani has led the Connected Learning Initiative since 2015, which was recipient of the prestigious UNESCO-King Hamad Prize for Excellence in the Use of ICTs in Education in 2018, and also the Open Education Consortium’s award for Collaboration in development of OERs in 2019. She has been a recipient of numerous academic fellowships including the Commonwealth Fellowship (2015) and the Indira Gandhi Memorial Fellowship (1999-2001), and has been an expert with the UNESCO Teacher Task Force. She has widely engaged with policy at the National and state level, in areas of teacher education (Member of the NCTE Council 2009-2013) and was member of the Steering Committee of the National Curriculum Framework 2005. 

Prof. Sarangapani has innovated, conceptualised, and led several major initiatives of professional development in the education sector in India including capacity building of mid-level school support functionaries, pre-service teacher development, in-service teacher professional development, and innovation with ICT use in several Masters programmes. She has undertaken field action, in collaboration with state governments, has developed and researched the role of Teacher Resource Centres, and has collaborated internationally for research (Kings College for Quality in Education, Massachusetts Institute of Technology for CLIx-scaling). She led the development of the proposal awarded the prestigious KIX-GPE award of IDRC – Connected Learning in STEM-- currently being implemented in Tanzania, Nigeria and Bhutan. She is the founding managing editor of Contemporary Education Dialogue—a peer reviewed scholarly journal.

Prof. Mythili Ramchand

Co-Chairperson, Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education

Prof. Ramchand is a Professor and Co-Chairperson at Centre of Excellence in Teacher Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She anchors the long-term programs at CETE, including the B.Ed-M.Ed program. Her research interests are philosophy of education, initial teacher preparation, inclusive education from a social justice perspective and mediation of resources in teaching learning process. Before joining TISS, Prof. Ramchand was the Director of RV Educational Consortium, Bangalore from 2005 to 2018. She has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles, working papers, reports, book chapters, and has also edited books.