Dr. Vishakha Desai is Chair of the Committee of Global Thought, Senior Advisor for Global Affairs, and Senior Research Scholar in Global Studies at Columbia University. Dr. Desai is also author of the recently published memoir, World as Family: A Journey of Multi-Rooted Belongings, published by Columbia University Press in the U.S. and Penguin Random House in India. Prior to joining Columbia, Dr. Desai spent 22 years at the Asia Society in New York, an educational organization dedicated to promoting mutual understanding and strengthening partnerships in Asia and the United States, and served the last eight years as its president, steering the organization’s growth in programs on education, art, business and public policy. A visiting professor at Columbia in 1995-96, Dr. Desai has also taught at Princeton University, Williams College, Boston University, College of Charleston and the University of Massachusetts, Boston. In addition to early work in education and public programs at the Brooklyn Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art, she was Assistant Curator of Indian, Southeast Asian and Islamic Collections at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. She has published catalogs of major exhibitions and holds five honorary degrees. Born in India, Dr. Desai received her B.A. in Political Science from Bombay University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Michigan.