Ananya is currently a junior in Silliman College at Yale majoring in Computer Science and Economics. Ananya is from Mumbai, India and has been studying Hindi since she was born!

On campus, she is involved with Yale College Council Events Team, Yale Danceworks, and is also an Undergraduate Learning Assistant (ULA) for Algorithms, a core Computer Science course. She loves watching horror movies/true crime documentaries, debating, and playing games with her two brothers!

Bio TBA.

Pranet is a sophomore in Berkeley College at Yale, studying Physics, Economics, and Computer Science. He has grown up all around the world, but currently calls North Carolina his home. He speaks Hindi and Marathi with his family.

At Yale, Pranet is involved in research on quantum computers through the Yale Quantum Institute. He also dances with Yale Jashan Bhangra and writes for the Yale Scientific Magazine. You can find him writing about movies and making music in his free time, while talking about the universe to anyone who will listen.

Devika is a first-year from Mumbai, India, possibly majoring in Psychology and English. She is in charge of Outreach and Communications for the Yale Hindi Debate!

Apart from this, she is involved with the Affective Science and Culture Lab, performs with the sketch comedy group Red Hot Poker, writes for the Yale Record, and works with the South Asian Society Cultural Committee. In her free time, you can find her eating mint chip ice cream, catching up with friends from home, teaching herself how to crochet, and watching Bollywood movies!

Alina is a freshman from Mumbai, India, and is currently thinking about majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics. She is excited to be involved with Yale Hindi Debate this year!

Apart from YHD, she is involved in the South Asian Youth Initiative, The New Journal, South Asian Society, Yale Undergraduate Law Journal, and Legal Aid Association. In her free time, you can find her exploring coffee shops in New Haven, spending time with friends in the Morse Art Gallery, and listening to Bollywood music every chance she gets!

Swapna Sharma is a Senior Hindi Lector at Yale University. Before joining Yale in 2009 she was a Lecturer in Hindi at the University of Chicago. Swapna started her career as Hindi lecturer at the University of Leipzig in 2007. She had been engaged with a dictionary project for several years at Katholieke University, Belgium.

Swapna Sharma received Ph.D. for her pioneer work on early Hindi devotional poet ‘Gadadhar Bhatt’ from Agra University.

Her research concerns Hindi language and literature with a focus on Braj Bhasha, its role in temple rituals and performing arts, hagiography and lexicography of the devotional literature of the middle Indo- Aryan languages, twentieth-century Hindi poetry, and gender.

Mansi Bajaj (she/ her) joins Yale as a Lector of Hindi. She will be working on strengthening the Hindi program at the MacMillan Center with a special focus on theme-based language learning. As a language educator, there are three main values that she seeks to exemplify: addressing socio-cultural issues for a broader understanding, utilizing diverse language inputs, and creating an interactive and safe classroom space.

In pursuant to the fact that language is ever evolving, she has adopted certain inclusive tweaks to the teaching methodology. She arrives from the University of Texas, Austin (UT) where she was teaching Hindi as an Assistant Professor of Instruction. She was on the panel of “Tackling Online Instruction of Less Commonly Taught Languages in a new Academic Year” at the Department of Asian Studies, UT. She is an active participant of workshops on “Diversity and Inclusivity in Language Classrooms”.

She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Delhi. In the field of foreign language pedagogy, her research interests are focused on communal conflicts, gender and sexuality, caste, religion and politics in South Asia. In addition, she has enhanced K12 programs in Texas by creating Open Educational Resources and Credentialing Exams for Hindi. Her current research projects include developing curriculum and study material to suit the needs of heritage learners, using technology innovatively to encourage creative language use, using assessment as a learning tool and literary realism in language class for social sensitization.