Staff
Monisha Ahmed
Executive Director
Tashi Morup
Projects Director
Aaron Deva Dana
Creative Director
Tsering Chonzom
Librarian, Archivist, Accountant
Sonam Angchok
Media Officer
Board of Trustees
Dr. Monisha Ahmed
Co-Founder of LAMO, Monisha Ahmed is an independent researcher, writer, and curator, specialising on art practices and material culture in Ladakh. She was Associate Editor of Marg Publications in Mumbai from 2010 to 2016. Previously, Dr. Ahmed was the Projects Director at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Greater Mumbai Chapter from 1997 to 2000. She holds a doctoral degree in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford where in her dissertation developed into the book Living Fabric — Weaving Among the Nomads of Ladakh Himalaya (2002), which received the Textile Society of America’s R L Shep Award in 2003 for best book in the field of ethnic textile studies.
Dr. Ahmed has co-edited Ladakh – Culture at the Crossroads (2005), collaborated on Pashmina – The Kashmir Shawl and Beyond (2009 & 2017), published several articles on textile arts of Ladakh, as well as other parts of India, including four articles in The Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion (2010), a chapter for The Arts and Interiors of Rashtrapati Bhavan – Lutyens and Beyond (2016), and the catalogue Woven Treasures – Textiles from the Jasleen Dhamija Collection (2016). She has curated exhibitions ‘Mapping Old Town, Leh’ (2013), ‘thread by thread’ (2015) and ‘Between Land and Sky – Woven Gold from the Gyaser Tradition’ (2019). More recently she was advisor for the Bhau Daji Lad Museum’s online exhibit We Wear Culture for the Google Cultural Institute.
Professor Phunchok Stobdan
Phunchok Stobdan is an academic, diplomat, and author. He is the founding president of the Ladakh International Centre. Prof. Stobdan is also the former Indian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from XXXX to XXXX. During his time in Almaty, he also served as Director of the Indian Cultural Centre at the Embassy of India. Prof. Stobdan was a senior fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi from XXXX to XXXX.
Prof. Stobdan is regarded as an expert on Indian foreign policy and national security on Central and Inner Asian affairs. He has published extensively on the subject and is the author of several articles and books such as India and Kazakhstan: Civilizational Explorations (2003); The Last Colony: Muzaffarabad-Gilgit-Baltistan (2008); and more recently The Great Game in the Buddhist Himalayas (2019).
Professor Tadzin Joldan
Tadzin Joldan is an academic and a professor. She has worked in the Government Higher Education Department, Jammu & Kashmir for almost thirty-five years. In addition to teaching, Prof. Joldan has worked in the administration as a principal of various colleges in the state. She was the founding principal of Eliezer Joldan Memorial College in Leh, which is named after her late father, who was a renowned academic and scholar in Ladakh. Prof. Joldan was the principal of the Women’s College in Srinagar and worked as a member of the University Academic Council at Kashmir University for many years.
Prof. Joldan served as a member on numerous organisations including the Board of English Studies, Kashmir University; Academic Arrangements Higher Education Department, Bachelor of Education colleges in the former Jammu and Kashmir state; Advisory Board on Education, Hill Council Leh; Operation New Hope (ONH), The Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL); Education Board, Church of North India, Amritsar; Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), an initiative by HH the Dalai Lama; Founder member on the Dara Shikoh Foundation. After retiring from active service she now spends her time in social work.
Advisory Committee
Dr. Clare Harris
Clare Harris is a British anthropologist, art historian, and academic specialising in South Asia and Tibet. She has been curator for Asian Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and Professor of Visual Anthropology at the University of Oxford. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom’s national academy for the Humanities and the Social Sciences, in 2019.