Recording of the Awards Ceremony

Dr. Aswin Punathambekar is a Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication, and Director of the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication (CARGC). He is the author of several articles, books, and anthologies including From Bombay to Bollywood: The Making of a Global Media Industry (2013), Television at Large in South Asia (2014), Global Digital Cultures: Perspectives from South Asia (2019), and Media Industry Studies (2020). Punathambekar is an editor of the peer-reviewed journal Media, Culture and Society and co-editor, alongside Jonathan Gray and Adrienne Shaw, of the Critical Cultural Communication series at NYU Press. He serves on the editorial boards of several other journals including the International Journal of Cultural Studies, Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, and BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies. He also serves as a Juror for the Peabody Awards in the U.S.

Dr. Shoba Sharad Rajgopal is one of the founders of the Department of Ethnic & Gender Studies at Westfield State University in Westfield, Massachusetts, where she teaches courses on Gender, Race, and Sexuality. She is the recipient of her campus Research Scholar of the Year, 2023. Her research and teaching areas are in postcolonial and transnational feminist theories, South Asian cinema, and globalization, religion, and gender conflicts. She has recently been elected President of the South Asian Feminist Caucus of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA), USA.

Dr. Rajgopal's  areas of research are South Asians and Racial Justice in the homeland as well as the diaspora. Her doctorate is in Media Studies from the University of Colorado, Boulder, from where she also earned the Interdisciplinary Graduate Diploma in Women and Gender Studies.

Prior to her arrival in the United States, she worked for seven years as a broadcast journalist for the Indian TV network Doordarshan based in Bombay (Mumbai), India, and has also done in-depth news reports for CNN International and other Indian TV channels such as Times TV and Zee TV. Her journalistic work focused on the struggles of women and indigenous people in the postcolonial nation-state. Her work has been published widely, in academic journals as well as newspapers and magazines in both India and the U.S.

Dr. Pranav Jani is Associate Professor of English with a focus in postcolonial studies and critical ethnic studies. As director of the Asian American Studies (AAS) at Ohio State, part of the Center for Ethnic Studies (CES), Dr. Jani runs the minor in AAS and other programming. Dr. Jani’s research and teaching interests focus on the literatures, cultures and history of colonized and formerly colonized people (including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Ireland) and people of color in the United States. In particular, Dr. Jani specializes in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, Marxist theories of nationalism and colonialism, and the intertwined legacies of colonialism, settler colonialism and slavery.

Anu Vedantham is an Assistant University Librarian in the Data Research and Teaching Services Division at the Princeton University Library. She conducts outreach and provides instruction and research consultations, collaborating with colleagues in several library units. She is active in several research communities.

Kartik Nair is Assistant Professor of Film and Media Arts at Temple University. His book, Seeing Things, explores material infrastructures of film production, censorship, and circulation by examining their spectral traces in Indian horror films of the 1980s. He is a core editor of Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies. His research interests include cinematic infrastructures, genre cinemas, and visual space in film.

Vaishnavi Patel is a lawyer focusing on constitutional law and civil rights. She likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anti-colonialism. She is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Kaikeyi. Vaishnavi grew up in and around Chicago, and in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish.

ART JUDGE

Vimal Kumar (b. 1993) is a multidisciplinary Singaporean artist and researcher with an interest in the visual aspect of storytelling, often delving into narratives of the unseen. His works explore themes related to culture, heritage, spirituality, and ecology. Vimal's research interests being rooted in Hinduism, plays a vital role in his art making as well. He has been part of several art exhibitions since 2018, and has been featured on publications such as Time Out (SG). Vimal recently graduated with a Master in Art Research at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Art, Design and Media, having written a thesis on the images of goddess Mariamman in Singapore.

ART JUDGE

Seema Shakti is a NYC-born, bred and based Curator, Visual Artist and Educator.

As a Visual Artist, Seema explores the intersection of women, nature and spirituality in her work. Her Indo-Caribbean and South Asian heritage have a significant influence on the themes she explores, rooting her art practice in her ancestry. Seema currently serves as a Visual Voices Curator at Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning in Queens and amplifies local BIPOC creatives through her exhibitions. Outside of the arts, Seema works full-time in the nonprofit sector within the youth development field.