QI Affiliate Endows Forum on South Asia

New Lecture Series Honors Indian Author, Political Psychologist and Social Theorist Ashis Nandy and Wife Uma

A new South Asia-focused forum, made possible by an endowment fund established by UC San Diego faculty member Mohan Trivedi, his wife Nayana and family, will be launched with an inaugural lecture at 5 p.m. April 17 at Great Hall. The Trivedi family’s Gulistan (meaning land of flowers) South Asia Endowment Fund will support the forum in perpetuity.   

The forum honors Ashis Nandy, the renowned Indian author, social theorist, political psychologist and social and cultural critic, and his wife Uma. Ashis Nandy is the author of dozens of books and articles on colonialism and the psychology of politics and culture. He has lectured at universities around the world and is the recipient of the Fukuoka Grand Prize that honors individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the fields of Asian studies, Asian art and Asian culture.  

The forum will be held annually and hosted by the South Asia Initiative, a group of UC San Diego faculty and researchers that was established in 2015 to support scholarship, research and discussions about the region. The group draws its members from various disciplines across the university. 

Trivedi, distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering, has been a member of the university’s faculty for three decades. He is the founding director of the Computer Vision and Robotics Research Laboratory and the Laboratory for Intelligent & Safe Automobiles (LISA). He is also a faculty affiliate of the Qualcomm Institute.

“Our family has participated in and enjoyed various events organized by the South Asia Initiative,” Trivedi said. “We admire the commitment and enthusiasm of the team, as well as their plans to expand the outreach of their program to a wider community. We are delighted to offer the Gulistan South Asia Endowment Fund as a token of our deep appreciation for the UC San Diego community.”  

Trivedi noted the gift reflected a longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary efforts like QI. “Engagements with collaborators from disciplines other than my own has been the most significant element in my own professional and personal growth, starting from my graduate studies until today,” he said. “So when the opportunity to move our team to UCSD, which has multidisciplinary foundational character, in the 1990s arose, it was a very easy decision. Some of our early collaborations were with colleagues from Neuroscience, Marine Biology and International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS). In the late 1990s, we initiated a multidisciplinary UC System-wide program, the Digital Media Innovation Initiative, with engagement of California-based industrial partners. That led naturally to the much larger efforts in the establishment of the California Institutes for Innovation; CalIT2 [QI’s parent organization] was the most successful example of that. We developed a solid team of multidisciplinary collaborators from Cognitive Sciences, Psychology, Structural and Civil Engineering and even Visual Arts, Music and Spatial Audio, and successfully developed long-lasting partnerships with industrial and government agencies. Even now, we have ongoing projects involving colleagues from the School of Medicine, Psychology, Computer and Cognitive Sciences. So, the Gulistant initiative seems to be a natural evolution in support of creative, multidisciplinary academic and public platforms and spaces.”

The co-directors of the new forum are Prashant Bharadwaj, professor of economics, and Saiba Varma, associate professor of anthropology. The are both steering committee members of the South Asia Initiative. Varma is also the director of the South Asian Studies minor at UC San Diego.   

“We are deeply grateful for the generosity of Mohan and Nayana Trivedi and their support for an endeavor that will attract and engage students, scholars and the community in discourses on South Asia,” Bharadwaj said. “This gift, coming from a member of the STEM faculty to an initiative rooted in the social sciences, speaks to the culture of interdisciplinary collaboration at our university.” 

Varma said the forum would bolster the programming of the South Asia Initiative.

“It will bring speakers of international stature to campus, support greater understanding of the South Asia region from diverse perspectives, and anchor the minor on South Asian Studies,” she said. “We look forward to bringing greater visibility to South Asia, one of the world’s most significant and strategic regions, at UC San Diego.” 

The guest speaker at this year’s inaugural Ashis and Uma Nandy forum is T.M. Krishna, a highly acclaimed singer of Carnatic music, the South Indian classical music genre considered to be one of the oldest musical traditions in the world. Also a writer and activist, Krishna has performed all over the world and is the recipient of the 2016 Ramon Magsaysay Award.  Admission to his lecture, “Dissent in Music: Past, Present, and Future,” is free and open to faculty, staff, students and members of the public.  

Learn more about the inaugural Ashis and Uma Nandy forum on Wednesday, April 17 at 5 p.m. (Great Hall, UC San Diego campus) or how you can support UC San Diego.