Ph.D. Candidate
About
I work on the art and architectural history of South Asia and the Himālayas. My dissertation project centers around the relationships between monasticism and urbanism in the premodern period and their effects on contemporary rituals at private and public spaces. My archive includes a variety of figural-cum-decorative materials at sacred sites in Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley.
Earlier careers in the crafts industry and natural sciences have shaped my work in the history of art. As a paper- and print-making apprentice in Bhaktapur, I developed an interest in art and iconography. In-depth knowledge of Buddhist and Hindū iconographic texts allowed me to work as a heritage consultant. At Bhaktapur, I coordinated multiple projects, that involved building reconstruction through adaptive reuse, especially after the devastating 2015 earthquakes. Degrees in Chemistry and Buddhist Studies fostered dual interests, that converged many times while studying indigenous technologies and documenting artisanal productions. A third degree in Art History enabled me to reconcile these disparate fields into a focused professional path.
My first MA thesis concentrated on the form and function of chthonic deities (yakṣa-yakṣiṇi) represented on pre-seventh century stone figures. Another long essay discussed about a wooden biographical panel and viewer-response at a seventeenth-century Buddhist monastic courtyard in Patan (Lalitpur). This essay was awarded the 2022 Percy Buchanan Graduate Prize. An ongoing subsidiary project involves a study of window architecture from Nepal in a wider Indo-Islamicate context—two articles are forthcoming.
I have taught undergraduate and masters level courses and held research positions in Nepal. Internships and research assistantships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, and the Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art have enriched my archival and curatorial practices.
Interests:
- Himalayan art and architecture
- Transregional exchanges
- Urbanism
- Newār Buddhism
