Community and Outreach

The community and outreach team brings together stakeholders to help WELL Labs scale science-based solutions for society and the environment

Our Work

Join Our Community

Publications

Team

Our Work

We amplify research insights and evidence-based best practices for social impact and innovation

Communicate effectively to bridge the gap between research and impact

Build communities of champions to scale science-based solutions

Disseminate evidence-based strategies and how they can be adapted to varying contexts and geographies

Showcase the achievements of our partners

Promote science communication in multiple languages for diverse audiences

Publications

Team

Anjana Balakrishnan

Anjana Balakrishnan

Managing Partner
Community and Outreach
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Anjana Balakrishnan leads the Community and Outreach team at WELL Labs.

Anjana is an online communications and community specialist. Over the last 11 years, she has led content management projects and online/offline community engagement programs.

She has worked with non-profits like the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Ashoka Innovators for the Public and Janaagraha to streamline their content, communication and community engagement strategies.

She is also a published author and her first book is a fictionalised biography called ‘The Dog We Stole’ (Dec 2020). Her short stories have been published as part of anthologies. Her children’s stories are part of Cambridge English curriculum. She’s reviewed fiction for The News Minute and Deccan Herald. She was a grantee at Gender Bender 2019. Anjana holds a Master’s in Communication from Manipal University where she specialised in Print and New Media.

When not at work, she is a minion to her two dogs—Echo and Pathu.

Aparna Nambiar

Aparna Nambiar

Design Consultant
Community and Outreach
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Aparna is a Design Consultant at WELL Labs.

With a background in architecture, she started her career and training under Gayathri & Namith Architects, Bengaluru, and worked as a Junior Architect at Restore Design, Benagluru. She worked on interior design projects for several residential, hospitality and retail projects in South India. This time of detail-oriented design amplified her long-time love for the visual arts and in 2020, she found her calling in graphic design.

Aparna primarily works on motion design projects (animation) and other graphic design projects that involve making illustrations, infographics and other communication-related creatives.

In her free time, she likes taking on creative passion projects, learning new languages and watching anime.

Ananya Revanna

Ananya Revanna

Social Media Associate
Community and Outreach
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Ananya Revanna is a Communications Associate at WELL Labs.

She is a journalist and social media manager who has, over seven years, worked with two print publications (Deccan Herald and The Hindu BusinessLine), an online news portal (The Federal) and an academic and research institute (Indian Institute for Human Settlements). In addition, she has worked on various freelance projects such as editing books and research papers, writing on wildlife conservation, and working as a production assistant for a Netflix documentary series.

Ananya believes in growing horizontally rather than vertically so she often finds herself in unexpected places and situations, like volunteering at an organic farm or a homestay in the middle of a tiger reserve. While she has a BA in Communication Studies, much of what Ananya has learnt comes from traveling and talking to people. She is a certified SCUBA diver, enjoys long walks in the rain and soaking up the afternoon sunlight.

Saad Ahmed

Saad Ahmed

Community Manager
Community and Outreach
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Saad is a Community Manager at WELL Labs. He has 10 years' experience as a media and communications professional in magazines, news websites, publishing, startups and development organisations.

His writings, photos and videos on literature, travel and ecology have featured in The Indian Express, The Wire, The Hindu, Outlook and VICE among other publications. He has worked as a researcher, production assistant and assistant cinematographer on documentaries for the BBC, NZZ and Globe Trekker.

Saad has a BA in Philosophy from St Stephen's College and an MA in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia. He has pursued courses in yoga teacher training in Madurai, mountaineering in Dirang and skiing in Gulmarg.

Choppakatla Lakshmi Pranuti

Ch. Lakshmi Pranuti

Senior Outreach Associate
Community and Outreach
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Pranuti is a Community Outreach Associate at WELL Labs.

Pranuti finished her B.Sc Hons Physics from Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher learning and M.Sc Geoinformatics from Institute of Environment Education and Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth University, Pune.

During post-graduation, Pranuti took up a summer internship at IIC Technologies, Hyderabad and another major internship at ATREE, Bengaluru. After graduating, she served in the UAV sector, before moving to the research field in 2018.

Pranuti is a GIS specialist by training but pivoted to community engagement when she realized the importance of interactions that go beyond remote sensing.

Apart from academic interests, Pranuti is also an avid traveler, trumpeter, biker and loves trekking and other outdoor activities.

Ananya Revanna

Ananya Revanna

Senior Digital Media Associate
Community and Outreach
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Shashank is a Hydrologist with the Urban Water programme at WELL Labs.

He has more than five years of experience working on water resources across different terrains. Currently, he is working on water and wastewater issues in Bengaluru and its surroundings. He previously worked extensively on urban lakes of Bengaluru, which included hydrological modelling, maintaining the citizen lake dashboard and training volunteers for data collection.

Shashank completed his Master's in Environmental Studies from TERI University with a focus on water conservation and hydrology. Before joining the Urban Water programme, he worked on spring rejuvenation in the Himalayas with CHIRAG. He worked on geological surveying and community engagement.

Furthermore, he enjoys working on creation of participatory, crowdsourced databases and discovering new tech that can help improve citizen science engagement.

Kaavya Kumar

Kaavya Kumar

Senior Editorial Manager
Community and Outreach
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Kaavya is an Editorial Manager at WELL Labs.

She worked as a journalist for five years - as a reporter for The Hindu in Thiruvananthapuram and as an online news editor for the Hindustan Times in New Delhi - before reading for an MSc in Climate Change, Development and Policy at the Institute of Development Studies.

Prior to joining WELL Labs, Kaavya was part of the Word Lab at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements where she structured and edited academic articles, grey literature and other in-house publications drafted by IIHS researchers across teams. She also helped distil research into more accessible formats such as op-eds, data stories and photo essays.

As faculty for the IIHS Urban Fellows Programme, Kaavya also worked closely with students to shape their writing. She is also one of the instructors of a MOOC hosted on Coursera called, 'Writing and Disseminating Grey Literature'. She also anchored project work carried out under the Earth Journalism Network Asia-Pacific Media Grants 2020, which resulted in a climate change journalism handbook and a media review.

Meghna Majumdar

Meghna Majumdar

Senior Content Specialist
Community and Outreach
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Meghna Majumdar is a Senior Content Specialist at WELL Labs.

Prior to joining WELL Labs, she was a journalist for nine years. Meghna has worked with print publications like The Hindu in Chennai and The Hitavada in Nagpur, as well as fledgeling hyperlocal news websites. She has interviewed rock bands, reviewed restaurants and written about urban biodiversity and citizen science projects.

As a writer as well as an editor, her craft has always focussed on setting complex phenomena to the right context, and making it easily comprehensible for non-expert readers.