Empower the Gifted .

Mrs. Malati Kalmadi is the Founding Director of the Kaveri Gifted Education Research Center, which was initiated in 2014. She has also been the managing trustee for the last 30 years and secretary to Kannada Sangha for the last 15 years. She has been the pillar in creating systems in educational institutes much ahead of our times. Kaveri Institutes has had school counsellors for last 25 years. In 2014, she initiated the Kaveri Gifted Center to set the pioneering work in the field of gifted for the entire Nation, bringing all stakeholders together. Her dream is to see that every gifted child in a school should be given the opportunity to gain access to resources and support within the school. Parents of the gifted child and the teachers are also given training and support in the Kaveri group of institutes. Her vision is to bring the high ability students as leaders and changing agents for the nation. 

Mrs. Sumathi Srinivasan has served as a Principal and Head at Dr. Shamarao Junior College for the past 15 years. She has three decades of administrative experience in different capacities in the Kaveri Group of Institutes. She has initiated several programs for Junior college students and ensured that students feel secure by promoting the mental health of adolescent students on her campus by building sensitivity with teachers and counsellors. Her fondness for interacting with children of all ages by accepting to be the Center-in-Charge of the KGERC brings in her expertise to fast forward the Gifted. 

Dr. Desai has a PhD in Parent Training and has been working for more than 24 years. She has worked in the area of giftedness for over 15 years. She is also a consultant at Tribal Mensa, Pune. She was awarded the Belin-Blank Fellowship to attend their course in gifted education from the Belin Blank Center of Gifted Education at the University of Iowa, USA. She is associated with the European Council for Higher Ability (ECHA) and presents papers in Europe in the area of Giftedness. She designed the teacher training programs at the center which is based in Belin Blank Center, Iowa, USA. Dr. Devasena facilitates the KGERC team in formulating ideas for different programs and services for gifted children. She also offers individual guidance to parents of gifted children and supports teachers in introducing classroom enrichment activities. Recently, she has been appointed as the Adjunct Lecturer in the Department of Rehabilitation Counselor and Education at IOWA University, USA. 

Dr. Sameena Manasawala has been working as a Facilitator for more than 15 years. She has a doctoral degree in gifted education. She has been involved in the area of giftedness for more than 10 years. She has worked in schools as a counsellor and then proceeded to initiate after-school programs and services for gifted children. Her passion for addressing this issue led to her being awarded a Fellowship to attend a five-day residential course in gifted education from the Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education at the University of Iowa, USA. She has also been associated with Mensa India, working with tribal gifted students. Her area of interest is nurturing programs for the gifted, twice-exceptional children, and she has presented research papers at both National and International conferences. She works with children who are gifted and talented from age 10 years to adolescence on a myriad of issues like social awkwardness, difficulty in maintaining relationships, underachievement, perfectionism, anxiety related to performance and feeling demotivated due to inappropriate challenge levels in school. For younger children, she works with parents, helping them understand how to view their child’s development through the lens of giftedness and holistic talent development. She facilitates the Parent Support Group and trains school counsellors to integrate services for gifted children in the regular school set-up. She is also a visiting faculty member and teaches undergraduate psychology courses at reputed institutes in Pune. 

​​Ms. Kasturi Hapse is an aspiring Psychologist with a keen interest in research, psychometrics, psychometric tool development, and statistical data analysis. She holds a master’s degree in Industrial Psychology. Her master’s level thesis was a correlational study between job crafting and work-related quality of life and organizational commitment. As an Assistant Researcher at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center, she is contributing to the research projects in the area of Giftedness. Apart from research, she enjoys dabbling in art and craft, making several artefacts from handmade paper artefacts.​​​ 

​​​Ms. Sanjita Prasad is a Gifted Facilitator and Counsellor at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center. She has completed her Masters in Counselling Psychology. Her areas of interest include designing workshops for the nurturing program, conducting assessments, and creating a safe space for children. She loves to incorporate concepts of Indian Psychology into daily life. She loves to read books, manga, and comics, draws sketches in her free time, and is a sports enthusiast.​​ 

Vrushali has attained a Master’s degree in Psychology from Maharaja Sayaji Rao University Baroda, distinguishing herself as a gold medalist in the program. Additionally, she holds a Post Graduate Diploma in School Psychology from Jnana Prabodhini’s Institute of Psychology. Accumulating 9 years of professional experience in the education sector, she has served in various roles, including facilitator, teacher, counselor, instructional designer, and lecturer.

Over the past 3 years, Vrushali has been actively imparting knowledge in psychology courses to graduate and postgraduate students at esteemed institutes in Pune. Recently, she has been awarded a Junior Research Fellowship from the UGC to pursue her Ph.D. Her commitment extends beyond academia, as she finds fulfillment in working with children and is deeply passionate about assisting them in realizing their full potential.

For the past 4 years, Vrushali has been actively engaged in the field of gifted education. Her roles as a counselor and facilitator have allowed her to work closely with numerous gifted children. Beyond that, she has taken on the role of guiding parents on their journey to nurture their gifted children. In addition to her hands-on involvement, Vrushali has contributed to the academic discourse in the field by presenting a paper on the experiences of gifted students in Indian schools at a national-level conference.

Mrs. Prateeksha Khatri is a Counseling Psychologist and RCI Recognized Rehabilitation Psychologist. She has worked with Schools like Billabong High International, Vadodara and Akshara International, Pune and has experience of 4 years. She strives to work with children and families to ensure mental health and well-being in the best possible ways. She facilitates workshops at Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center with the objective of Nurturing the socio-emotional skills of gifted children. 

Anand holds a doctorate in Suryanamaskar. He was a student of Jnana Prabodhini School for the Gifted from grade 5 to grade 10. He holds a master’s degree in Psychology and has been an associate professor at Fergusson College, Pune Department of Psychology for about 7 years. He has published research papers in the area of health in reputed journals. Currently, he is the Head of the Research Department at Taal Inc. and is a father to 2 gifted sons. Being gifted himself, Anand is able to instantly connect with the children. During the sessions, he often interacts one-on-one with the children. Through sharing his own personal journey as a student, he helps children become more aware of their needs and challenges and possible ways to cope with them. He also introduces children to Suryanamaskar, chanting and engaging them in spiritual discussions. He challenges the children to think differently and keep setting and achieving higher goals. 

Aditi can be rightly called the ‘Doodle Master of Pune’. Her areas of interest and work are art, illustration, graphic design, and calligraphy. She has founded ‘The Doodle Factory’ which has created a niche for itself in Pune and outside for being the place for illustrations, art and calligraphy. She also runs a studio, ‘Doodle Tales’ in Baner and offers community programs that use varied visual art mediums. Aditi is very reflective in her thinking and practice. She encourages children to reflect on ‘Art and Design’ and form their own meaning of the concepts. She helps children to develop a habit of setting their own standards and evaluating their work for themselves. She constantly brings in novel mediums, spaces, and ideas to the sessions, and her facilitation style creates an open, accepting and mindful environment for the children. She is well-travelled and shares her experiences with the children, inspiring them to go beyond borders and explore new ways of thinking and being. She primarily uses the visual arts medium to develop creative thinking for gifted children. 

Mrs. Archana Deshmukh is an Experiential Educator, Facilitator, & Personal Coach. She brings with her a unique blend of experiences from a variety of fields like IT, Projects & services, experiential education, mentoring adolescents and outbound camps. Her 15 years of professional life offered her an opportunity to interact with people from industries like manufacturing, service, IT, NGO & education. For the last 7 years, she has conducted experiential education-based outbound and classroom educational programs with teams in the areas of collaboration, leadership, diversity, conflict resolution, customer centricity, communication, self-management and stress management. So far, she has also worked as an educator with 2000+ children and youth and as a personal coach at individual levels for many adults and students. 

Ms. Pallavi Dalvi, M.Sc., M. Ed., NET (Education), has been working as a Pedagogical consultant. She believes in creating sustained methods for quality education. She has been in the field of teaching for 22 years and has been in gifted education since 2014. At KGERC, she has been a part of Teacher Training and curriculum development. She has facilitated “Jigyasa”: a Maths and Science activity book based on methodologies for advanced academic learners.

​​Rahee D has been working in the field of education for over 25 years. She has taught English language and literature, sociology, and courses in leadership and global citizenship. She has been involved in teacher training as well as curriculum design and facilitates creative thinking courses and workshops for students.​​​ 

Dr. Rena F. Subotnik PhD serves as Research Associate at the Academic Talent Development Program, University of California, Berkeley, Graduate School of Education. From 2001 until June 2023 she was Senior Director of the Center for Psychology in Schools and Education at the American Psychological Association. The Center’s mission was to generate public awareness, advocacy, practical applications, and cutting-edge research ideas from psychological science that enhance the achievement and well-being of talented children in schools.

Before she came to APA, she was middle school teacher of the gifted in a Seattle Public Schools, and a professor of Educational Psychology at Hunter College, research coordinator of the Hunter College laboratory schools for gifted students (1984-1997, 1998-2000), and a Congressional Science Fellow from 1997-1998.

She is co-author, with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius, and Frank Worrell, of the Megamodel, appearing in publications such as Scientific American, Scientific American Mind, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Frontiers in Psychology, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, and the Annual Review of Psychology, and co-editor with Paula Olszewski-Kubilius and Frank Worrell of The Psychology of High Performance: Developing Human Potential Into Domain-Specific Talent.

Rena has been awarded grants from the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the Camille and Henri Dreyfus Foundation, McDonnell Foundation, the American Psychological Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Education to support her projects.

She has completed her MSc MPhil in Applied Electronics from Gulbarga University. She has 25 years of teaching experience and was the moderator and chief moderator for Computer Science subject in KSC Board Pune for more than 10 years.

She has been a Heartfulness meditation trainer since 2017 and has trained many individuals and groups of college students in the art of Heartfulness way of meditation.

She is an environment educator and geography teacher at the junior college, and has been involved in the Gifted Nurturing Programme for many years now. She contributes to it in terms of designing and executing innovative programs for gifted adolescents.

Mrs. Smita Pradhan has done her Master’s in Clinical Psychology and is currently working as a Senior Counsellor for the Junior College for the past 10 years. Smita has dealt with innumerable young adult behavioural and academic issues. She works closely with teachers as mentors for gifted programs and assists in several college activities.

She has done her Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Fergusson College and has previous experience teaching high school students. She is currently working as a counsellor and gifted facilitator at the Junior College.