Teaching & Facilitation
Previously, I piloted and prototyped interdisciplinary global health curricula at Harvard. However, creative pedagogy, facilitation, youth work, and art infuse all aspects of my life. Take peek at some of the courses, workshops, and programs I’ve been a part of over the last several years. Interested in bringing me to your community? Get in touch!
Grief Rituals for Societal Heartbreak
Workshop: November 2024
Amidst multiple genocides and environmental collapse, grief is a portal: It reveals, transforms, and directs us to what is next. Held at Narrative — a beautiful, immigrant-owned bookshop in Somerville — this workshop helped participants navigate societal heartbreak with others who are also feeling deeply. Blending breathwork, altar-making, small-group discussions, and sketching, participants were invited to co-create a soft and slow space to begin metabolizing grief in community.
South Asian Art & Education
Panel: April 2024 at Tufts University
Alongside the wonderful artist Sneha Srestha, I was invited to participate in a panel at Tufts University’s South Asian Regional Committee (SARC) 2024 Symposium. The panel aimed to shine a spotlight on the significant contributions of South Asian artists in advocating for social justice and promoting education through various artistic mediums. “With a focus on themes such as spirituality, identity, and community, these artists leverage their creative expressions to initiate important conversations and foster meaningful connections within and beyond their communities.”
We Do This Together
Meditations on Queer Kinship and Healing
Guest Lecture: June 2023 at Boston College
Guest lectured on queer kinship and healing in Prof. Oladoyin Okunoren’s summer course at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education, “Psychological Responses to Humanitarian Crises: Human Rights, Gender Violence, and International Justice.” The lecture braided together my graduate thesis research on gender-expansive youth and their caregivers, alternative models of kinship, and my recent gallery, feelings are data.
Nurturing Communities of Care
Supporting LGBTQ+ Youth And Young Adults
Workshop: Facilitator (February 2023, April 2021)
How do we nurture spaces where LGBTQ+ youth and young adults can be supported in all their wholeness? In April 2021 and February 2023, I facilitated a virtual workshop on gender, sexuality, and belonging for mentors and mentees in Chinmaya Mission Niagara’s Mentorship Program.
Designed initially in response to pandemic isolation, the program has connected over 300 individuals since its inception in January 2021. Mentors and mentees speak biweekly over the course of the year through phone calls or video chats to build meaningful bonds that rest on a robust spiritual foundation. From 2021-22, I also served as one of the coordinators of the program.
Collaging Our Feelings!
Workshop: Facilitator (2020)
Digital collage allows us to make magic from the mundane. And it’s a gorgeous medium for making our thinking visible, too! In this workshop, a part of the Harvard Graduate School of Education course Designing for Learning by Creating, we will walk through some simple (and free) digital tools for finding, editing, and layering images before collaging our feelings. Permission to laugh/cry as needed.
Designing for Learning by Creating
Course: Teaching Fellow (2018, 2020)
How do we design physical and virtual learning environments that center the curiosity and agency of our students? How can we practice learning by doing? These are just a few of the questions explored in Professor Karen Brennan’s flagship course on constructionism at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, “Designing for Learning by Creating.” In 2018 and 2020, I had the delight of facilitating a learning community for graduate students as they embarked on their own creative learning projects in the course.
South Asian Sex Ed Salon (SASS)
Series: Co-facilitator with Sukriti Dabral (2019)
A Boston-based workshop series and space for South Asian Americans to unpack sexuality, relationships, and everything in-between. Curated in 2019, the series connected the dots and examined the fissures across diasporic identity, personal histories, and community through facilitated dialogue and interactive activities.
Imagination as a Research Tool
Workshop: Co-facilitator with payal kumar at the 2018 Allied Media Conference
Imagination is a radical methodology that helps us interpret the data points of individual and collective experiences. This workshop explores the untapped potential of imagination as a research tool that surfaces unexpected insights. Through playful exploration, we will study “artifacts” from a liberated future to unearth truths about the present moment and visualize transformative possibilities for our movements. Participants will leave with a zine on using imagination in revolutionary inquiry.
Podcasts for Re-Centering Narratives
Workshop: Panelist at the 2017 Allied Media Conference alongside Tanzila Ahmed
How do you use digital tools to re-center narratives about your community towards resistance? Podcasts are the latest storytelling tool used to shift hearts and minds. It is imperative that communities of color use counter-narratives to not only build personal identity power, but also shift the narratives of mainstream media. This panel will walk through steps on how to create digital storytelling podcasts as an artistic tool of resistance.