Akanksha Sharma

Akanksha, NLS BA LLB 2013, is a lawyer by training and has previously worked as a principal associate at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas with the public mergers and acquisitions team. Her work included advising clients across industry sectors on corporate restructurings, stressed asset acquisitions, domestic and cross-border investments, and corporate governance.

As a student at NLS, she was awarded the Nani A. Palkhivala Memorial Trust Scholarship for Constitutional Law, and the Temasek Foundation Leadership Enrichment and Regional Networking (LEaRN) Scholarship at the Singapore Management University. She was the Chief Editor of the Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) in 2011-12, and was also on the editorial board for the National Law School of India Review.

She joined NLSIU in September 2021 as the University’s first Alumni Officer to handle alumni relations. As an alumni officer, she helped in systematising the University’s continuous engagement with alumni, deepening the relationship with our alumni, broadening access to include alumni from all our programmes, and managing NLSIU’s alumni platform (alumniconnect.nls.ac.in).

In her new role at NLSIU as Chief of Staff, Akanksha will work in the Vice-Chancellor’s Office on a wide variety of administrative and executive priorities, duties, special projects, and initiatives.

Anjali Varma

Anjali Varma joined NLSIU in November 2021 to establish the People & Culture function at NLSIU. Anjali plans to drive a high level of employee engagement, through identifying, establishing and managing appropriate people policies and processes across a variety of functions at the University.

An alumnus of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Anjali is an HR Professional with over 16 years of experience in building and leading HR functions for enterprises.

She  graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Mount Carmel College following which she completed her post-graduation in ‘Social Work, Family and Child Welfare’ at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has worked in different aspects of Human Resources spanning talent management, talent development, policies and processes. Since 2019, she has been in the HR consulting space, partnering with small and medium enterprises as well as firms and public institutions on various HR matters. She also works in the area of Prevention of Sexual Harassment at the workplace.

She is passionate about Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and writes in a variety of publications on topics that explore the intersection of gender, diversity and work life. Links to her publications are available here.

Bijay Das

Bijay has a Bachelor’s degree in Science from St. Xavier’s College, Calcutta and a Master’s Degree in Economics from Jadavpur University. Prior to joining NLSIU, he was associated with Azim Premji University at the Institute of Assessment and Accreditation, and the Piramal Foundation. At APU, his responsibilities involved setting up the online repository of questions, generating question papers, and providing quantitative analysis on its quality. He also contributed in streamlining student assessment processes for various State boards. During his eight years at the Piramal Foundation, he set up the Center of Excellence-Assessment team to develop quality assessment processes and systems for students.

Della Marks

Della is a counsellor by profession and has a postgraduate degree in Counselling Psychology. Prior to joining NLSIU, she was at Azim Premji University, Bangalore where she worked as a Resident Mentor for five years and also briefly took up a role in Academic Administration. Previously, she has also worked as a child life practitioner, and as an applied behaviour therapist.

Della enjoys working with young adults and has consistently been involved in various activities and sessions to promote wellness and positive mental health. At NLSIU, she works at the Office of Student Affairs along with Ms. Sunita Prabhu to develop and deliver various welfare initiatives for our student community.

 

Jyoti Singh

Ms. Jyoti Singh is Manager at the Department of Professional & Continuing Education (PACE). Jyoti holds an MBA with a dual degree in Marketing- Sales, and Operations and a strong operations background. She brings more than five years of work experience, having worked exclusively in the field of education. She joined us from upGrad Education Pvt. Ltd., where she was working as an Assistant Manager and handling online MBA programmes along with the sourcing of subject matter experts.

Jyoti believes in the holistic development of administrative operations, and her constant endeavour has been to create a balanced workspace that will result in better productivity. Through her work at PACE in the University, she hopes to work towards empowering the online legal educational system and making it accessible.

Madhu K S

Madhu K S has been working with NLSIU since 2001. He graduated with a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science from the University of Mysore in 2000 and completed his M.Phil in Library and Information Science from Alagappa University in 2011. He has over 20 years of work experience in Library and Information Science Practice and Research.

Prior to working at NLSIU, he was a Resource Person for the Library Automation Project at Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysore, and a Library Trainee at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore. He also cleared his Karnataka State Eligibility Test in 2015.

At the NLSIU library, he is in charge of acquisition, cataloguing, and maintenance of theses & dissertations, and also handles assistive technology for the visually impaired. Other responsibilities include online and offline referral services, updating reading materials on LMS, maintaining question papers/answer keys, library orientation for new users, and management of information resources.

With a few published papers to his credit, his interest areas in research are: Use of social media in libraries, digital library and user’s study.

Some of his publications are available at Google Scholar.

Dr. Mahesh Yarnal

Mahesh Yaranal has been working with NLSIU since 1997 and is presently serving as Librarian In Charge. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Karnatak University in 1996 and completed his PhD in Library Sciences from Bangalore University in 2018.

His responsibilities include the overall administration of the library, and handling of journals and databases. He has also been the coordinator for library workshops and orientation programmes.

He is presently working toward the Library’s Strategic Plan 2021 to conceive more academic programmes in information sciences. His major contribution at NLSIU includes Digital Access to NLSIU Scholarship (DANS), an institutional repository developed using DSPACE. He was the core member of the library ICT implementation programmes such as (i) NLS_LIS (an in-house developed library management system) in the year 2000, and (ii) Koha open access catalog since 2018 which serves not only as a library catalogue but also as a discovery platform.

His doctoral thesis revolves around the digitization of rare and classic resources and his research contributions include articles in national and international journals, editing of volumes/book chapters, etc. He was awarded the UGC Junior Research Fellowship in 2012.

Some of his publications are available at Google Scholar.

Meenakshi Chauhan Gupta

Meenakshi graduated with a degree in architecture from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi (2003-2008) and specialized in urban design at the School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore (2013-2014). Throughout her academic and professional journey, she has worked on various projects, gaining experience in interiors, architecture, urban design, research, project management, execution, and academics.

She has collaborated with several organizations on projects of varying scales, ranging from urban design to interior design. These organisations include BMS College of Architecture, Clinikk, Sattva, IIHS, Turner, Kanvinde Rai & Chowdhury, Matra Architects & Rurban Planners.

At NLSIU, her responsibilities will include providing campus-wide consultation, upgradation and proper functioning of all facilities on campus, coordination in the planning, development and implementation of construction and/or repair programs within the broad area of engineering, etc.

Nandita Ramanathan

Nandita joined NLSIU in June 2021. She drives the University’s fundraising efforts by raising financial support from high networth individuals, corporates, alumni, foundations and the Government. Nandita has an MBA from INSEAD and is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants, UK. She has previously raised funds for Ashoka University and worked as a management consultant in the UAE, India and Germany.

Nishtha Vadehra

Nishtha is an editor of academic and popular nonfiction writing, with a keen interest in bridging the two. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, New Delhi, and a Master’s Degree in English literature from Delhi University. She has worked in book and journal publishing, as well as independently with scholars, artists and filmmakers.

Trained as an editor at Yoda Press, Delhi, she went on to work with the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru, where she helped drive publishing strategy across digital and print platforms, and co-curated a city-writings festival. She has over a decade’s experience in working with researchers and practitioners to convey insights from their work through diverse forms of writing. She has served as writing faculty at IIHS’ Urban Fellowship Programme, and conducted several writing workshops for researchers, academics and development sector professionals.