Dr. Vishakha Desai is Special Advisor for Global Affairs to the President of Columbia University and Professor of Practice at its School of International and Public Affairs. She also serves as Senior Advisor for Global Programs to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. She was previously President and CEO of Asia Society, where she served in various leadership capacities, including Director of its museum.

Recipient of five honorary degrees, Dr. Desai has published widely on traditional and contemporary arts of Asia as well as on contemporary social and political issues. She has taught at Boston University, Columbia University, Princeton University and Williams College.

Dr. Desai serves on the National Museum and Library Services Board and she has also served as President of the Association of Art Museum Directors and has been on the boards of the Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, College Art Association and Massachusetts Humanities Foundation. She currently serves as a member of the Mayor’s Commission for Cultural Affairs in New York City and on the International Advisory Committee for the House of World Cultures, Berlin, and the Auroville Foundation, India. She is an Advisory Trustee of the Brookings Institution and a Trustee of the Bertelsmann Foundation and AFS Intercultural Programs. She serves on the Corporate Board of Mahindra & Mahindra, one of India’s largest global corporations.

Dr. Desai holds a B.A. in political science from Bombay University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Asian art history from the University of Michigan.