Fawzia Afzal-Khan

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is a schol-art-ivist, engaging her scholarship and performance work in the service of social justice ideals. She is a distinguished scholar and professor of English at Montclair State University, NJ, with a rich history of academic and activist engagement. She has taught at MSU since 1987 and held a Visiting Professorship at NYU Abu Dhabi. Fawzia's work extends to Pakistan, where she taught and designed curricula with Fulbright support. She is the author of six books, including "Cultural Imperialism" and "Siren Song," exploring Pakistani history through women singers. Fawzia has received prestigious fellowships, such as Fulbright-Hays and NEH Bridging Cultures Through Film, and served as a Writer-in-Residence in Switzerland. She is a vocal North Indian Classical musician, playwright, actor, and poet, focusing her writing on gender and social justice from a postcolonial perspective. Actively involved in various organizations, she is the founding chair of the South Asian Feminist Caucus and contributes to Counterpunch.org. Explore her work on www.fawziaafzalkhan.com and her blog www.travelingfeminista.com.

Deepa Banerjee

Deepa Banerjee is a South Asian Studies Librarian at the University of Washington Libraries. Her job responsibilities include working as a liaison to the South Asian Studies Department and helping the students and faculty with all their research needs.  She is an advocate for the needs of South Asian Studies faculty and students. She has worked on many digitization projects, exhibits and events.  One of her major research interests is studying and documenting the stories of immigrants who immigrated to Pacific Northwest. She has completed four phases of South Asian Oral History Project. Deepa Banerjee is also a Hindustani classical musician and has performed for many organizations such as Ragamala, Pratidhwani, Uttoron. She has also released music albums of semiclassical compositions and bhajans.  

Smeeta Hirani

Smeeta Hirani has been in the Tech Industry for 20+ years but she still lights up when she talks about how Technology and Arts can bring about social impact. Her career started as a geeky electrical engineer and after her MBA, she moved to the business side. Her experience spans across several multinationals like Microsoft, Amazon Web Services etc. but her North star has always been about how she can bring about meaningful change in our beautiful planet. She is passionate about women in tech, films, sustainability, and believes storytelling is the single biggest change unit. She was born in Bombay, raised in Karachi and has been in Seattle for the last 23 years. You can find Smeeta's profile on Linkedin here.

Poornima Janakiraman

Poornima Janakiraman is an entrepreneur who owns her own small business. She is also a devoted and innovative executive with extensive business development experience with e-commerce, project and program management, and business operations. Her previous experiences include working as a Program Manager at Microsoft & Amazon. She has volunteered at non-profits like Habitat for Humanity and United Nations. She also volunteered at Bailey-Boushay House in Seattle, WA where she met with critically ill in/outpatients weekly, assisting with daily activities and encouraging involvement in social and recreational events. She also served as a board member at Tasveer.

Manasi Mishra

Manasi Mishra is a marketing and communications professional with 15+ years of experience in higher education, non-profit, and corporate spaces. She uses the power of storytelling with an anti-racist lens to center the voices of marginalized communities and contribute to the goals of social justice. Presently she works as the Assistant Director of Strategic Diversity Communications at the University of Washington. At TRASAL, Manasi will help create and implement the marketing and communications strategy.

Priyanka Rawal

Priyanka Rawal is a Product Management professional in Seattle with a profound love for literature. Excited to support TRASAL, Priyanka is dedicated to uplifting the literary arts community.

Sumathi Raghavan

Sumathi Raghavan (she/her) works at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in development and as staff writer. She has previously served on the boards of Tasveer (a South Asian arts and social justice non-profit) and Lake Washington Girls Middle School. In her free time, she’s making her way through an enormous stack of books acquired during the pandemic, exploring her adopted home of Seattle, and spending time with friends.

Shoba Sharad Rajgopal

Dr. Shoba Sharad Rajgopal received her Ph.D. in Media Studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Spring 2003. She moved to the East coast to take up a position as the Director of the then Women’s Studies Program at Westfield State University and later served as the Chair of the Department of Ethnic and Gender Studies. She has stepped down as Chair recently, but remains in charge of the Women and Gender Studies Minor in the Department of Ethnic & Gender Studies, where she teaches interdisciplinary courses that focus on caste, race and gender issues and religious extremism in South Asia. She has worked with colleagues across campus and helped develop an Asian Studies Minor at the university. Dr Rajgopal traveled widely across Asia and Europe in her previous avatar as a broadcast journalist and reported for the Indian networks and for CNN International from various international locations.

Meenakshi Rishi

Meenakshi Rishi is a Professor of Economics at Seattle University. She currently holds the Howard J. Bosanko Chair for International Economics and Finance at the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University. She earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Economics at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a member of the American Economic Association and the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economic Profession. Dr. Rishi is also a Fulbright Specialist and Executive Director, Association of Indian Economic and Financial Studies.

Dr. Rishi’s research has examined a variety of issues for emerging economies, capital flows, and the Indian economy, among others.  She has published forty-four refereed journal articles in highly regarded outlets such as the Journal of Development Studies, the International Review of Financial Analysis, the Journal of Developing Areas, Energy, and Energy Economics. 

Dr. Rishi has delivered Keynote addresses to companies and Think Tanks in the US and abroad.

She is on the Boards of PrathamUSA, Pratidhwani, and Infinity Box Theater.

Alpna Sood

Alpna Sood was born in India, and transplanted to New Zealand in 1988. She has a background in math, software, and education. She spent two decades in software before becoming a high school math teacher. She balances Mahbubani art, a home-based soy candle venture, podcast editing, and a passion for fitness through walking, yoga and personal training.

Homeira Qaderi

Dr. Homeira Qaderi is an award-winning Afghan writer and advocate for women’s rights and the empowerment of Afghan civil society. Born in Kabul, Qaderi received her Ph.D. in Persian literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She has written seven books, including her acclaimed novel Noqra: The Daughter of Kabul River.  Homeira was awarded the Malalai Medal of Honor—Afghanistan’s highest civilian honor—for exceptional bravery. Her first book in English translation is her memoir, Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son (Harper, 2020). After the fall of Kabul, Homeira became a fellow at Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Presently Dr. Qaderi is a Writer in Residence at Yale University. Learn more about Homeira on her website.

Sharmila Seyyid

Sri Lankan artist and activist Sharmila Seyyid has created waves in the media and the fight for human rights since she began working in these fields in 2001. Following the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2006, she became a vocal activist for the equality of women, particularly among the Tamil-speaking minority. She was awarded the IIE Artist Protection Fund Fellowship despite being exiled from her home country because of the significance of her writing and activism. She worked with the University of Nebraska in Omaha's Leonard and Shirley Goldstien Center for Human Rights and the Sam and Frances Fried Academy Holocaust and Genocide Academy. Her works of fiction, nonfiction, short stories, and poetry are significant contributions to literature. Sharmila’s novel "Ummath" was awarded the Best Novel of the Year 2014 and is available in English through HarperCollins.

Shreerekha Subramanian

Shreerekha Subramanian, who also publishes as Shreerekha Pillai, is Associate Dean of the College of Human Sciences and Humanities at University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL). She is the winner of the Marilyn Mieszkuc Professorship in Women’s Studies (2009), UHCL President’s University Faculty Fellowship (2020), several teaching awards at Rutgers and UHCL, and has been teaching at the university and the prison for nearly two decades. She publishes in the area of postcolonial, critical race, carceral and feminist studies and most recently edited the volume Carceral Liberalism: Feminist Voices Against State Violence (University of Illinois Press) on August 15, 2023. 

Pramila Venkateswaran

Pramila Venkateswaran, poet laureate of Suffolk County, Long Island (2013-15) and co-director of Matwaala: South Asian Diaspora Poetry Festival, is the author of many poetry volumes, the most recent being We are not a Museum (Finishing Line Press, 2022). She has performed her poetry internationally, including at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. An award-winning poet, she teaches English at SUNY, Nassau, and offers writing workshops to breast cancer patients. Her recent critical essays on Dalit feminist poetry have been published in many journals, most recently in Wagadu. Some of her translations of Tamil poets from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka have been published in anthologies. She is the President of NOW, Suffolk, New York.