I am an architect and landscape architect with a PhD in Environmental Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. I hold a masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Virginia Tech and a bachelors in Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture, Hyderabad where I received two university gold medals for excellence in Architectural education. During this time, I completed my architectural training with the late Shri. Ravindra Bhan in New Delhi, India.For over a decade, I worked as a research associate and project director with the Children’s Environments Research Group (CERG) at the Center for Human Environments (CHE), CUNY Graduate Center. My CERG portfolio includes development of children’s participatory assessment toolkits and management of global projects related to child friendly cities, communities and schools with UNICEF, Bernard van Leer Foundation and Plan International alongside Dr. Roger Hart and Dr. Pamela Wridt. In fact, I continue to hold my scholarly affiliation with CERG after moving back to India, my home country as South-Asia representative for the Child Friendly Places (CFP) methodology. During my time with CERG, I co-developed, facilitated and co-managed participatory research in New York City, Haiti, Uganda, Benin, Egypt and multiple Indian cities including New Delhi, Mumbai and Bhavnagar. With global experience of working with children, young people and adults in urban areas of the Global South, my PhD research focused on the play lives of young children (0-8 years) from middle-class families living in high-rise housing developments in a fast growing city in India - Pune.As a child friendly cities expert, I supported World Resources Institute (WRI) to develop guidelines and toolkits for making Indian cities friendly for infants, toddlers and caregivers under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Smart Cities Mission’s Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge. This 3-year challenge is in partnership with the Bernard van Leer Foundation.Currently, I am the director of GRIT, an environmental design and research studio that bridges people and places by examining the physical and social affordances of the built and natural environment to promote healthy people-place interactions. Through my interdisciplinary architectural practice, I aim to improve play, work, home and learning environments for children, young people and adults in urban areas of the developing world.