south-asia
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Geetha Murali
Dr. Geetha Murali is the chief executive officer of Room to Read, the global literacy and girls' education nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco. The first non-founder CEO of the organization, she leads a team of roughly 1,200 staff across 29 countries and a network of more than 20,000 partners and volunteers. Under her watch, Room to Read's programs have reached over 60 million children. A PhD in South Asian politics with a master's in biostatistics, she frames her work through a personal lens: her mother was nearly a child bride, and her family's trajectory shifted in a single generation.
Nicholas Dirks
Nicholas B. Dirks runs the New York Academy of Sciences, one of the oldest scientific organizations in the United States. A historian and anthropologist by training, he led UC Berkeley as its 10th chancellor, chaired anthropology at Columbia, and writes books about empire, caste, and the future of the university.