ABOUT ARTFORUM SF

Art Forum is a nonprofit organization dedicated to defining and promoting all art forms emerging from South Asia. We endeavor to present the visual, the literary, and the performing arts in their manifold variations, thereby amplifying South Asian Voices to a wider audience.

Art Forum serves as a confluence where diverse artistic forms can develop and collaborate, retaining their unique identities while connecting to a global context.

Ambika Sahay

Ambika Sahay is the Founder and Executive Director of Art Forum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to elevating South Asian voices through literature, art, and public dialogue. She leads the organization's strategic vision, financial stewardship, organizational management, fundraising, and the development of its flagship South Asian Literature & Arts Festival (SALA), as well as year-round cultural and educational programs. Before founding Art Forum, Ambika spent several years working across the international nonprofit sector in human rights, economic development, and community development, managing programs in India, the United Kingdom, Africa, and South America. Working alongside diverse communities—from Indigenous Baka communities in Central Africa to artisans and craftspeople in India—she witnessed the transformative impact of grassroots initiatives. These experiences also revealed that lasting social change is shaped not only by economic opportunity, but by the stories people tell, the ideas they exchange, and the cultures they preserve. Inspired by this conviction, she founded Art Forum to create a platform where literature and the arts foster dialogue, build empathy, and amplify underrepresented South Asian voices. Under her leadership, SALA has become one of the leading South Asian literary and arts festivals in the United States, bringing together internationally acclaimed authors, artists, scholars, and emerging voices to engage audiences in conversations that transcend borders and generations.

Kiran Malhotra

Kiran Malhotra's research interests have concentrated on Dietetics and Nutrition. She has served as faculty in the Department of Foods and Nutrition at Lady Irwin College,University of Delhi for several years. Currently she serves as a trustee of the University of California, Santa Cruz foundation and she also sits on the board of the Public Health Foundation of India. She has consistently supported the visual arts and has been an advocate and a patron of the performing arts.She maintains a keen interest in the new trends in contemporary arts and design and has lent active patronage to upcoming artists.

Mayuranki Almaula

Mayuranki Almaula, PhD, works in the field of molecular diagnostics with a current focus on Infectious Diseases and Oncology. She holds a PhD from Stanford University and a Masters from the Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda. In the past, Dr. Almaula worked in the Recombinant Protein Division of DNAX Research Institute (now Merck). Subsequent to that she was the technical liaison for the Business Development efforts of several companies like In Silico Sciences, Simbiosys-Biowares (now acquired by the Lonza Group), and Gen-Probe, Inc. At present, Dr Almaula heads the Partnerships and Alliances division at the molecular diagnostics company Co-Diagnostics.

Anant Mathur

Anant Mathur is an experienced business leader who has worked widely in the areas of Business and Customer Intelligence, Strategy, and Analytics. Anant has held senior executive-level positions in several of the world’s biggest companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo and Unilever. Anant is an alumnus of IIM (Calcutta) and has an undergraduate degree in Economics.

Ajit Singh

Ajit Singh, PhD, has devoted his career to developing and fostering innovation in Technology and the Life Sciences. Dr. Singh has dedicated many years to leading and spearheading R&D and delivery in artificial intelligence, medical diagnostics, and health services. He incubated and piloted such efforts, first in Seimens and then as CEO at BioImagine. He then turned to Artiman Ventures, and to the task of supporting and investing in early-stage Med-Tech and Life Science enterprises. Dr Singh is on the board of several companies operating in this sphere. Also, donning his academic mantle, Dr Singh is a Consulting Professor in the School of Medicine at Stanford University and has authored several books and articles on a range of specialized subjects. Dr Singh’s background includes a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University, a Master's degree in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Banaras Hindu University, India. An avid reader, Dr Singh also finds the time to publish his own Top-1 book review each year, which is featured in several blogs.

Vikram Chandra

Vikram Chandra is an Indian-American writer. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. He has since written Love and Longing in Bombay [pl] (1997), a collection of short stories. It won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Eurasia region) and was short-listed for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Sacred Games (2006) is Chandra's most popular novel. Over 900 pages long, Sacred Games was one of the year's most anticipated new novels. It had been the subject of a bidding war amongst leading publishers in India, the UK, and the US. It has also been adapted as a web television series by Netflix.

Rajen Dalal

Rajen Dalal is passionate about art, literature, and theater’s power to expand perspective and nurture community. He has lived in San Francisco for 35 years. He worked in biotech, serving as President of Chiron’s HIV and Hepatitis C Blood Testing division, and later as CEO and Board member at heart-disease diagnostic startups. He recently founded ContinuumCare, an AI-driven diagnostics platform supporting older adults aging at home with guidance for their adult children. His education spans chemistry and the life sciences at Elphinstone and St. Xavier’s College Bombay, MIT, and the University of Chicago, after which he joined McKinsey & Co. in NYC. He co-founded Outward Bound California and serves as Emeritus director.

Moazzam Sheikh

Moazzam Sheikh was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He studied business, film and library science and is a librarian at the Art, Music and Recreation Center at San Francisco Public Library. He also writes and translates fiction in Urdu / Punjabi/ Hindi / English. He is the author of two collections of short stories – Cafe Le Whore and Other Stories and The Idol Lover and Other Stories of Pakistan.

Raghu Karnad

Raghu Karnad is an Indian journalist and writer, and a recipient of the Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Non-Fiction. He is the author of Farthest Field: An Indian Story of the Second World War which was shortlisted for the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for 2016, and was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar for a writer in English the same year. His articles and essays have won international awards including the Lorenzo Natali Journalism Prize in 2008, the Press Institute of India National Award for Reporting on the Victims of Armed Conflict in 2008, and a prize from the inaugural Financial Times-Bodley Head Essay Competition in 2012. Karnad was previously the editor of Time Out Delhi. He has also contributed articles to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Granta & The Guardian. He is chief of bureau and editor-at-large for theWire.in, an independent news website that he helped to found in 2015.

Rekha Rodwittiya

Rekha Rodwittiya is India's top contemporary artist. She completed her graduation from The Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S. University, Baroda in 1981. She then received the Inlaks scholarship for her M.A. in Painting from Royal College of Art, London in 1984. In 1988-89 she was invited as guest artist to the Konsthogskolan, Stockholm and was also invited to deliver series of lectures on Indian Art at the Ecole des Beaux Arts Grenoble and Castello de Rivoli, Torino in 1991. She did a short stint at the Fullam Institute on Film and Video, and was conferred the Staff Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation Asian Cultural Council to work in the U.S. in 1990.

Reshma Nigam

Reshma Nigam, our advisory board member is a very active member of the Bay Area community. Reshma wears many hats! She runs her own marketing agency, Markable Solutions, which services Silicon Valley companies. As Founder and President she keeps ahead of the curve with the changing sales and marketing environment. She brings her organizational and marketing skills to her non-profit volunteering. Active in the PAN IIT Bay Area organization she helps organize professional and cultural events for them and is their Treasurer. Reshma is also on the board of ICA. She is on the Global Leadership Council at the Lucas College and Graduate School of Business, San Jose State University. A frequent speaker at Marketing events, Reshma is a known expert on digital marketing and enjoys hiking, reading and the movies. She has a love for adventure and goes on frequent active trips to the Himalayas.

Sanjoy Roy

Sanjoy K Roy established Teamwork in 1989, a versatile production house with widespread interests in the performing and visual arts, social sector, films and television. He has received the National Award for Excellence and Best Director, for the film `Shahjahanabad’. Currently Roy produces 14 annual Arts Festivals across the world including the popular Jaipur International Literature Festival. In 2008 he designed and directed – A Tribute to Africa featuring 250 artistes from 15 African countries. He has also designed the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games Arts Festival in Melbourne, 2006. He is a founder trustee of the Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust, and Salaam Baalak Trust which provides support services for street children in Delhi.

Ambika Sahay- Executive Director

Ambika Sahay spent several years working in the non-profit sector in the international arena, with a particular focus on project management. She has been involved with projects in India, the UK, Africa, and South America. She is the founder Executive Director of the Art Forum. She spearheads strategic execution of events and festival concepts.

Paramita Sen- Finance Director

Paramita Sen has spent her career working in both the corporate and the non-profit sector, at the crossroads of IT and Decision Support. In the non-profit world she has worked extensively in areas as diverse as economics, agriculture, irrigation, health, and education, helping to build information systems to enhance delivery processes and plan policy for poverty reduction and environmental management. In the corporate sector she has worked widely in the fields of Knowledge Management, Decision Support, Descriptive and Predictive Analytics, and Software Development for effective business analysis, processes, and strategy

Jena Mehrotra- Press & Media Relations Manager.

Dr. Jena Mehrotra has devoted her life to seeking ways of using stories, art, music, and research to enrich the lives of parents and children with special needs. She has a doctoral degree in Family & Child Development and is a board-certified practitioner of Applied Behavior Analysis. Dr. Mehrotra firmly believes multi-lingual and multi-cultural social stories play a critical role in helping overcome challenges, increase independence, and enrich life, one child at a time. Dr. Mehrotra lives in an organic, bee and bird-friendly home in Ventura County, California, running a company providing intervention to children on the Autism spectrum and sharing her love of reading through an open book exchange library in her front yard.

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Sangeeta Mehra - Volunteer manager

As someone with an appreciation of the arts, I have spent the last couple decades visiting museums around the globe, organizing and hosting cultural programs in my community, and supporting local theaters. I am an avid reader and a part of many different book clubs. In my spare time I enjoy tending to my garden, volunteering at the senior center, arranging luxury vacation travel for my friends and family, and exploring/reviewing restaurants all over the world.

Ishita Ghosh - Program Manager

Ishita has a PhD in Human-Computer Interaction from UC Berkeley and has spent considerable time building computing systems for low-income communities in India and East Africa. More recently, she was working as a researcher in Meta building out trusted enterprise financial systems. Ishita is an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction and is excited to collaborate more closely with SALA.