Research Fellows
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Irina Giri
Research Fellow 2020
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Irina Giri
Irina Giri is an interdisciplinary artist. She works with audio, writing/text, video,film and performance. Research, introspection and experimentation play pivotal roles in her process. She has a deep interest in cinema,music and experimental soundscapes. She graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in Visual Culture and Performance Studies from Simon Fraser University in 2015. She is currently working as a freelance artist, musician, editor, writer and filmmaker.
To explore Irina Giri's resources, click here.
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Monika Deupala
Research Fellow 2020
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Monika Deupala
Monika Deupala is a multimedia journalist based in Kathmandu. She has worked on many social and political issues as part of her career as a journalist. She worked at “Nepali Times” for last four years and works as a stringer for Reuters at the moment.
To explore Monika Deupala's resources, click here.
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Prashanta Khanal
Research Fellow 2020
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Prashanta Khanal
Prashanta Khanal works in sustainable cities, urban mobility, climate change, and air pollution, with focus on policies and research. Beside his work on environmental sustainability, he explores and writes on Nepali food culture, its heritage and diversity. He has recently published a Nepali cookbook “Timmur: Stories and Flavours from Nepal”.
To explore Prashanta Khanal's resources, click here.
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Minket Lepcha
Research Fellow 2020
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Minket Lepcha
Minket Lepcha is from Darjeeling, India exploring various mediums of communication to advocate about environment consciousness keeping indigenous folk narrative as a core of discussion. As a storyteller/filmmaker and independent researcher, she finds meaning in designing workshops around water/river for women, youth and addressing transboundary relationship of water/river. Currently, she is engaged with a “Himalayan Borderland” project, University of Toronto where Lepcha youths of Darjeeling and Sikkim are working on Discovering Sacred Landscape.
To explore Minket Lepcha's resources, click here.
![Monalisa Maharjan](https://kvuhp.nepalpicturelibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Monalisa-Maharjan-copy.jpg)
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Monalisa Maharjan
Research Fellow 2020
![Monalisa Maharjan](https://kvuhp.nepalpicturelibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Monalisa-Maharjan-copy.jpg)
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Monalisa Maharjan
Monalisa Maharjan is a researcher with experience on working in different heritage issues. Her past research was on intangible cultural heritage, community involvement, post 2015 earthquake reconstruction process and anthropology of inscriptions. She has a PhD in Art History from University of Évora, Portugal. Her current work is on Heritage activism focusing on Hiti of Kathmandu Valley within the flagship project “Heritage as Placemaking: The Politics of Solidarity and Erasure in South Asia” (HaP). She is also part of an international network working in heritage such as ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites) and ACHS (Association of Critical Heritage Studies).
To explore Monalisa Maharjan's resources, click here.
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Ubahang Nembang
Research Fellow 2020
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Ubahang Nembang
Ubahang Nembang is an illustrator, graphic designer and sometimes a writer. He graduated from Falmouth university with a MA in Illustration Authorial Practice and is now
based in Kathmandu.
Growing up in-between places, a farm in the eastern foothills of Nepal and Darjeeling where he completed his schooling, Ubahang has always felt like he has two homes and two families. He loves to draw moody landscapes with water buffaloes and long-tailed kites above enormous pine forests.
In his spare time, Ubahang loves to cook and drink tea plotting stories in his head.
To explore Ubahang Nembang's resources, click here.
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Tripty Tamang Pakhrin
Research Fellow 2020
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Tripty Tamang Pakhrin
Tripty Tamang Pakhrin is a photographer based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Her work explores ideas of space, memory and youth. She received VII Foundation’s The Alexandra Boulat Grant in 2019 to study at the Danish School of Media and Journalism. She’s a graduate of the International Class for Photojournalism and Documentary Photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Hanover. She’s an MFA in Art Photography candidate at Syracuse University.
To explore Tripty Tamang Pakhrin's resources, click here.
Research Advisors
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Sabin Ninglekhu
Research Advisor 2020
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Sabin Ninglekhu
Sabin Ninglekhu has a PhD in Human Geography (University of Toronto), focusing on urban governance, land, poverty and ‘slum’. In 2021, he completed a postdoctoral program on disaster governance and heritage urbanism, funded by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Sabin currently leads a project called ‘Heritage as Placemaking: The politics of solidarity and erasure in South Asia’, jointly conducted by the Social Science Baha; School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London; South Asian University; and Heidelberg University, Centre for Transcultural Studies.
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Tom Robertson
Research Advisor 2020
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Tom Robertson
Dr. Thomas (Tom) Robertson is a historian who teaches at Dhulikhel Hospital, the Kathmandu University School of Medicine. He often writes on the environmental history of Kathmandu and Nepal. Recent publications include “No Smoke without Fire in Kathmandu.” Nepali Times, March 5, 2022; “Kathmandu’s ‘Flash Floods’ Are 4 Decades in the Making.” Nepali Times, July 31, 2021; “The Monsoon, and Nature’s Arithmetic.” Nepali Times, June 26, 2021; “Kathmandu Loses Its Open Space,” co-authored with Nilima Thapa Shrestha, Nepali Times, May 3, 2021; “Particulates, Kathmandu’s Silent Killer, Explained,” The Record, March 30, 2021.
Project Team
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NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
Project Advisor
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NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati
NayanTara Gurung Kakshapati enjoys working across platforms to weave together visual narratives with research, pedagogy, and collective action to create public discourse around themes such as patriarchy, power and justice. In 2007, she co-founded photo.circle; a photography platform that has facilitated learning, exhibition making, and publishing opportunities for Nepali photographers. In 2010, she co-founded the Nepal Picture Library; a digital photo archive that documents and creates engagement with a public history of the Nepali people. NayanTara is also the co-founder and Festival Director of Photo Kathmandu, an international festival that takes place in Kathmandu every two years.
![Nishant Shilpakar](https://kvuhp.nepalpicturelibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SB_Stock_20210914_029.jpg)
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Nishant Shilpakar
Accounts and Logistics
![Nishant Shilpakar](https://kvuhp.nepalpicturelibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SB_Stock_20210914_029.jpg)
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Nishant Shilpakar
Nishant’s broad expertise ranges from handling the organization’s numbers and paperwork to managing the logistics of a variety of events. He is an avid traveller and likes to enjoy the Nepali mountains when he can. Being surrounded by photography practitioners most of the time inspires him to work on his own photography projects.