Asha Chandrashekhara

Asha Chandrashekhara Adiga (Acharya) Bharathanatyam : For more than 25 years, Asha has been in art field as a student, a performer and as an instructor. Asha was introduced and encouraged to the art forms at a very young age. Asha received her formal Bharathanatyam dance training form Vidhwan Raja Gopala Bhagavath and Vidushi Poornima Bhagavath in “Kalakshetra”dance style and she completed her “Vidhwat” level with their guidance.Guru Bhagavath couple took dance training from Vid. Janardhan, who was trained by Prof. M.R. Krishnamurthy who in turn received a disciplined training under guru Rukmini Devi Arundale Kalakshetra India. Asha graduated in Bharathanatyam dance form and secured 3rd Rank in state level ‘Vidhwat’ examination conducted by Secondary Board of Karnataka government.

Performances Asha’s creative and unique dance choreography which is combination of Bharathanatyam, Kuchupudi and Yoga in which she keeping 4 pots on her head, holding light in both her hands and while balancing them she dances on floor and on a plate giving various different ‘yoga’ postures, is very popular and crowd puller. She has performed this in more than 100 shows and each mesmerizing the crowd equally or better than the previous. She has given dance performances in Paris, France in the year 1992 (when she was just 9 years old) after getting selected in the workshop organized by Thirupathi Dance Academy of India. This gave her more recognition, motivation and responsibility to learn and contribute further to the art form.

Website : http://ashaacharya.org/founder/

Some news:

1. http://epaper.desitalkchicago.com/2016_05_27/files/assets/basic-html/page15.html

2.http://www.narthaki.com/info/rev17/rev2065.html

3.http://epaper.desitalkchicago.com/2014_04_18/files/assets/basic-html/page6.html

4.https://allevents.in/naperville/tiny-great-performances%E2%84%A2-acharya-performing-arts-academy/1945898755697473

Vidyani Suryadevara

Being a student leader was an opportunity to train and create the next generation of leaders, received the Chancellor's student service award four times and will be receiving the President's volunteer service award this April

Helped several students secure admissions into reputed academic for undergraduate, graduate and medical admissions in institutions across the country by providing letter of recommendations and mentoring in addition to trained several high school students, undergraduate students in Translational research

Taught courses at University of Illinois Chicago for undergraduate students and was rated very high in the course evaluations

Being elected as a student leader by 14,000 students and being their active voice and advocating for them with the campus administration has been a terrific experience. We could successfully revert back some of the reforms that were being proposed, which had a drastic impact on the students like the taxation of graduate tuition waivers. My focus as a leader was to create more leaders by giving them the opportunity to serve and lead and give them valuable guidance when they needed. As I'm set to graduate and get my doctorate in Bioengineering this Summer, it's very satisfying for me to see the students who have greatly benefited from my timely navigation of resources, training and mentorship and make me proud to see them as successful leaders, researchers and graduate students in various universities across the nation.

Smriti Anand

After a successful career in male dominated industries such as engineering and product management, I made the challenging transition from the hard sciences to social sciences. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in electrical engineering, and now after finishing my PhD in organizational behavior & human resource management (i.e., social sciences) I am a professor of management at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, IL. My dedication to management education has been rewarded by IIT Stuart School of Business Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016.

As a professor of management I aim to create new knowledge to improve employee lives and share this knowledge with future managers in my classroom. I continually mentor both undergraduate and graduate students from multiple academic, racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds. My work embodies women empowerment. Both male and female students seek my mentoring and coaching to enhance their professional and personal lives. In addition, I believe that by helping the diverse body of students at IIT and at other universities, I am showcasing the Indian culture very positively to the world.

I have also transitioned from being a manager to a researcher and scholar with more than 15 publications in leading management journals & books, and numerous research grants and awards to my credit. For my research accomplishments I have been chosen to be a Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Scholar. My research has also been recognized by 2011 Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Award in Human Resource Management.

https://stuart.iit.edu/faculty/smriti-anand