Dr Darshana Joshi, Founder and CEO VigyanShaala International
A passionate Physicist, mentor and social entrepreneur, Dr Joshi is committed to recalibrating the gender balance in STEM disciplines. She is presently building India’s largest digital ecosystem for affordable mentoring and coaching at scale for every Aspiring – Committed – Talented (ACT-ing) #GirlInSTEM at program Kalpana. Dr Joshi is keenly interested in designing low cost pedagogical tools to promote interdisciplinary thinking and problem solving among youth from the most marginalised communities.
Dr Joshi holds a BSc in Physics from Miranda House and Master’s in Materials Science from Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore. Later, she obtained a PhD in Physics from Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. For her doctoral work she was awarded the prestigious Schlumberger Foundation’s Faculty for the Future Fellowship for women from developing countries. Towards the end of her PhD she became the first Indian women to be elected the President of Graduate Union, the primary representative body of postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge.