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. Devasena Desai has worked in the area of giftedness for 25 years. She was awarded the Belin-Blank Fellowship to attend their course in gifted education in 2011 from the Belin Blank Center of Gifted Education at University of Iowa, USA. She is associated with the European Council for Higher Ability (ECHA), Hungary. Dr. Desai facilitates the KGERC team in formulating ideas for different programs & services for gifted children. She is the Former Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Rehabilitation Counselor and Education, IOWA University, USA. She is the country representative for the European Talent Search Network (ETSN), Hungary. She has worked extensively with gifted adolescent children, parents and has designed the programs in school. She is an executive committee member for PMILP (pradhan mantri innovative learning program, for the Ministry of Education. She is in the core committee for NCERT to enable and design the B.Ed gifted course. She currently represents India, as the Editorial Board member of the Springer book series “Advancing Inclusive and Special Education in the Asian Pacific”. She has authored 4 books, one of them is titled “Nurturing Buddhiman Children: A practitioner’s guide along with her colleagues Sameena Manaswala and Paromita Roy. 

Mrs. Pallavi Naik is an accomplished educationist who recently completed her tenure as the Principal of Dr. Kalmadi Shamarao High School, Ganeshnagar, Pune, a role she held with dedication for several years. With over three decades of service to the institution, she has now transitioned into a new leadership role as the Head of Academics and Learning for the Kaveri Group of Institutes. She is also a gifted educator and has been leading the gifted nurturing program for KGI schools for the last 3 years.

Mrs. Naik began her career as a kindergarten teacher and has since held diverse roles including teacher educator, instructional leader, and English language teacher. Her rich teaching experience spans a wide range of learners, from Kindergarten to Grade X.

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Social Work with a specialization in Family and Child Welfare from the University of Delhi. In 2002, while teaching at the elementary level, she completed her Bachelor’s in Education from Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Mrs. Naik was awarded the Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching in 2012 and spent a semester at the College of Education, University of Maryland, USA. She also serves as a Master Trainer for the British Council and the Government of Maharashtra’s English Language Initiative for Secondary Schools (ELISS) program.

She has presented at national and international conferences, including:

2014: Workshop on Active Listening Skills for Early Childhood Educators hosted by the British Council.

2015: Presentation on Purposeful Listening and Language Proficiency at the IATEFL Conference, Manchester, UK.

2019: Paper on Impact of Teacher-Led Initiatives on Student Learning at the International Symposium organized by the Centre for Creative Education, Finland.

2024: Participation in the Inner Development Goals Conference in Tunisia.

2024: Presentation at the Asia Pacific Gifted Conference in Japan.

Under her leadership, the school was selected as a host institution for the Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms Program in 2019. Mrs. Naik has recently designed and implemented a Gifted Education Program for middle school students, integrating cognitive curriculum with social-emotional learning. She also facilitates teacher training workshops focused on foundational literacy and numeracy, aligned with India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. She has conceptualized and is leading Kaveri Paragan—a collaborative, cross-school teacher capacity-building initiative aimed at identifying subject domain experts and strengthening instructional leadership across the Kaveri Group of Institutes.

Dr. Sameena Manasawala has been a counselor, facilitator and educator for gifted children for about 15 years. Her passion for addressing this issue led to her being awarded the Belin-Blank Fellowship for Professional Development in Gifted Education at the University of Iowa, USA.  Her area of interest is designing nurturing programs for buddhimaan children as well those talented in a specific area she has nurtured over 500 students in the past decade. She has initiated and facilitates parent support groups, trains teachers and counsellors in gifted education. She has led national level funded projects on talent development and consults with the government to design Gifted nurturing programs.  Over the past decade she has been actively involved in family counseling with gifted children and adolescents.  She is a certified mindfulness-based play therapist and a professional supervisor for counselors. She leads research projects in gifted education, has presented at both National and International conferences and has published research papers in reputed journals. Recently, she has co-authored a book ‘Nurturing Buddhimaan Children: A Practitioner’s Guide.

Ms. Kasturi Hapse is a Psychometrician and Researcher with a master’s degree in Industrial Psychology. She works as a Research Associate and Incharge of the Identification and Assessment Domain at KGERC for the past 3 years, where she leads gifted identification, assessments and research initiatives. She has presented two papers at the International conference on Giftedness and published research papers in reputed Indian journals.

Ms. Kasturi Hapse specializes in psychological testing, psychometrics, and statistical data analysis with an experience of 5 years in the field. She has conducted assessments for over 2,000 adolescents and 1,000 school students and trains psychologists in the administration of various IQ tests. She has also been a part of the team and developed a digitized, culturally responsive tool to support the identification and needs of gifted children at the foundation and preparatory levels. Her research interests include developing psychometric assessments embedded in Indian psychology, and understanding teacher and parent perceptions about giftedness. She has assisted in conducting impact studies and evaluations for teachers, students and programs to observe the effectiveness of the same. She is passionate about transforming complex data into meaningful insights, enabling data driven decision making in organisations.

Ms. Sanjita Prasad is a Gifted Facilitator and Counsellor at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center. She is actively involved in designing and conducting workshops, developing activities for nurturing programs, administering assessments, and creating safe, engaging spaces for children to express themselves for the past two years. She has contributed in profiling and working with children from across India in the prestigious project title ‘Borne to Shine’, nurturing talented girls across India.

She enjoys weaving concepts from Indian Psychology into her daily life and work. With a growing interest in research, she has presented two papers at the International Conference on Gifted Education and aims to contribute further to the field of socio-emotional nurturing and talent development.

She is an avid reader with a love for books, mangas, and comics. She is also a sports enthusiast and enjoys discovering new interests.

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. 

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.

Ms. Prajakta Pujari is a Research Assistant at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Centre, Pune (KGERC). She holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology, Pune, and has developed a strong interest in social science research.

Her research work primarily focuses on gifted adolescents. Currently, she is actively engaged in a collaborative research project with Prof.János Győri from Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. She is involved in collecting data from Junior college and  KGI school students to understand their concerns using shadow education. She assists in writing research articles related to giftedness as well.

In addition to her research pursuits, Ms. Prajakta has been formally trained in Indian classical and light music for over 10 years and continues to perform professionally.

Mrs. Priyanka Kulkarni brings over 10 years of experience in accounting and administrative roles across various corporate sectors and multinational companies. She holds a Masters in Business Administration-MBA in Finance. As a management professional who values multitasking and efficiency, has successfully handled a diverse range of responsibilities.

Her core competencies include billing specialist, invoice management, expense tracking, vendor management, preparation of estimates and budgets for events, financial management, and end-to-end cash flow projections.

In her current role, she also oversees office administration, including supply management, meeting coordination, project management and travel arrangements. With a passion for contributing to a meaningful cause, she has now chosen to transition to the education sector, where she is dedicated to rendering her valuable experience.

Ms. Ishani Pande  has a Masters in Psychology, from Pune, and an MSc in Applied Neuroscience from King’s College London. Her MSc dissertation explored ‘the impact of performing arts on mental wellbeing and cognitive indicators of healthy ageing’. She has over three years of experience in the fields of applied psychology and cognitive and behavioural science. Her work spans the development of emotional wellbeing assessments, integration of behavioural science into user-centric research for AI-based product development, and qualitative research on caregiving for children with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of cognitive neuroscience, behavioural science, and psychology, with a focus on understanding cognitive and emotional processes that influence wellbeing, learning, and creativity across diverse contexts.

As a Research Associate at the Kaveri Group of Institutes (KGI), she works on research on talent development, giftedness, and the measurement of learning outcomes in students.

Ms.Tejashree Kandalgaonkar has a Masters in Clinical Psychology from Savitribai Phule Pune University. She has a keen interest in psychopathology and counseling. She loves working with children and has a knack for connecting with them instantly.

She is curious and loves learning. She explores a range of topics from Art to History to Geography. Such diverse interests help her in approaching problems in a dynamic, multidisciplinary manner rather than a narrow, singular view point.

She is the alumni  of Jnana Prabodhini Prashala, Pune being Gifted herself  she has firsthand knowledge of Giftedness and is able to relate with its intricacies. It is with these experiences, she hopes to contribute to the gifted nurturing and counseling programs through KGERC to various students in schools.

Ms. Shweta Rajopadhye is the Gifted Program Coordinator and School Counsellor at Dr. Kalmadi Shamarao High School, Baner Section.

She holds a Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Fergusson College, Pune, and has a diploma in School Psychology from Jnana Prabodhini Institute of Psychology, Pune.

Known for her empathetic approach and ability to build strong rapport with students,

Ms. Shweta creates a safe and supportive environment for young minds. Her skills in counselling and facilitation are enhanced by her creative background—she has completed Visharad in Kathak and continues to actively pursue her passion for the classical dance form.

Her unique blend of psychological insight and artistic expression brings a well-rounded perspective to her work with gifted students.

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.