photo by Nusrath Yusuf
Designing for connection and care across disciplines and communities.
Nina Bhattacharya (“Radio Rani”, she/her) is a designer and educator from Michigan, now based in Boston, MA. As the visual artist Radio Rani, she stitches together reflections on liberation, community, and spirituality through digital collage. In her work as an educator and facilitator, Nina designs learning experiences that nurture and amplify the agency, wellbeing, and creative power of young people. Nina received her M.S. in Global Health & Population from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Making
keywords: digital collage, illustration, podcast production, brand design, dance
As Radio Rani, Nina’s collages are living artifacts of reflection, threading together meditations on liberation, community, and spirituality. Her pieces stitch archival images with the visual details of scrapbook kitsch, and offer tender commentary on current moments and movements. Nina’s artwork has been featured in publications like The Juggernaut and displayed at the Institute for Contemporary Arts / Boston.
A self-taught audio engineer, Nina produces the politics and culture podcast, Almirah Radio Hour, and Live Vedanta, a podcast on high thinking and happy living. Nina is also a dancer, currently studying kathak under Gretchen Hayden, senior disciple of Pandit Chitresh Das. She previously completed her Arangetram in bharatanatyam under Ashoka Rao.
Teaching
keywords: student agency, learning by doing, global health, facilitation, spirituality, social work
In her life as an educator and facilitator, Nina designs adaptive, playful learning experiences that empower individuals to create, experiment, fail, and grow. She has facilitated courses for students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard College, progressive faith-based programs for Hindu youth, and workshops for activists across the country. As an enthusiastic emcee, Nina also builds intergenerational creative community with Subcontinental Drift Boston, the first and longest-running South Asian open mic in the city.
Through her current work at the Global Health Education and Learning Incubator at Harvard University, she collaborates with educators and learners to develop multidisciplinary tools and resources that bring messy global challenges to life in the classroom.
Background
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Master of Science in Global Health and Population
(2015 – 2017)
University of Michigan – Ford School of Public Policy
Bachelor of Arts in Public Policy
(2008 – 2012)
Awards + Recognitions
Artist-in-Residence / Mango & Marigold Press / August 2020
Fulbright Fellow – Indonesia / U.S. Department of State / 2012 – 13
Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellow – Bahasa Indonesia / U.S. Department of Education / 2010 – 11