Priscilla T. Gonsalves
Priscilla Tapley Gonsalves ( Born September 27, 1950 in Binghamton, New York) is a Historian (PHD- focus on East European & Russian history), teacher and a social entrepreneur. Born and raised in the United States, she spent her childhood and school life traveling across the United States. She then joined the Peace Corps. She spent two years in Afghanistan as a volunteer teaching English to school girls, and one year in Yugoslavia for her doctoral research. She came to India in 1989, and there she has raised two daughters, taught school and college courses, opened and run Willy’s Coffee Pub – Ooty’s first lending library & cafe. She later on shifted to Northern India and founded EWOK, an NGO helping the local women in the Kamand Valley of Himachal Pradesh attain their goals. She has been a Director of Nilgiri Networks (P) Ltd since its founding in 1999, and advised the IIT Mandi Campus School Management Committee during its first few years.
Her mother, Claire T. Hopkins, was a passionate naturalist and birder introduced her to the local wildlife in various localities in the US. She developed a strong passion for and empathy with wildlife. During her time on the IIT campus in the Kamand Valley she has spotted and identified much of the wildlife found in that area. She has written two books based on her observations: “From Leopards to Lizards: A Brief Introduction to the Permanent Residents of Kamand”, Vol. II, IIT Mandi Kamand Valley Monographs, and a special edition for children “From Leopards to Lizards: Animals of Kamand”. She is conversant with many languages including French, German, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Dari, Tamil and Hindi.
Kartiki Gonsalves
Kartiki Gonsalves is an Academy Award winning filmmaker, the first Indian Film Director to have ever won an Academy Award in the History of India. An associate fellow at International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP), one of the first women chosen as a Sony Alpha Artisan of Imagery in India and a Swarovski Nature Explorer 2021 and Peak Design. She shuttles between the Nilgiri mountains in the Western Ghats of Southern India and the Pacific North West of North America.
Gonsalves is the founder of Earth Spectrum, an organization founded in 2018 which uses the power of storytelling to raise awareness about biodiversity and cultural life.
In late 2018, she was a part of the filming crew (one of the camerawomen) for the episode “The Asiatic Black bear” of the TV series ‘On The Brink’ for Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. This show focuses on many endangered species across India together with the stories of researchers and scientists involved in protecting them. Gonsalves’s photography work has been published in The Hindu, Economic Times, Deccan Herald, Scroll.in, Jet Airways- Jet Wings, Smart Photography, and Classic Imaging for which she is a freelance photographer. Her most recent work captured women’s lives in a land torn between two hostile neighbors in the northernmost tip of India on “The Line of Control” between India and Pakistan. Kartiki is also working on a long term project documenting and learning about an elusive cat species in the Western Ghats of Southern India. Her photographic work focuses on capturing the wonders of nature and diversity of cultural groups across the world.
Kartiki infuses her passion for adventure to bring new perspectives and a deeper public understanding to the environmental and humanitarian issues that define our times. She strives to document our natural world and to help others better understand the profound connection that we share with it. On the cultural side, she focuses on capturing the diversity of cultures and tribes across the world where she seeks to give a platform to women and indigenous tribes, especially those working to conserve nature. Kartiki focuses on solutions and highlight projects that show success stories where conservation is working to give hope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartiki_Gonsalves