Meet your SILC Teachers and Board (2010-11)

Aiswarya Menon: Children's Dance Teacher

Amrit Devgun: Children’s Dance Teacher

Anil Kumar: Tabla Teacher - anil05@aol.com

 
Anjali Gopal: Social Studies Level-3 and Children's Dance Teacher

Anjali Gopal is going to be a senior in high school and is a former SILC student. She is coming back to SILC to teach after 5 years. She was a former student at SILC for 6-7 years and she is really excited to be back to teach a subject that she was previously a student of!.

Anjali was a part of dance as her elective when she was in SILC, and learned how to read, write, and speak in Kannada class taught by her father. She has also visited India for a month for the past couple summers and loves to learn about their culture and their societies!.
 

Anjali also loves dancing, soccer, hiking, biking, and hanging out with friends in her spare time! She is enthusiastic about getting the opportunity to teach children the same things and much more that she learned in her journey at SILC.  Anjali will be assisting in teaching Social Studies Level-3 and Children's dance.

Divya Karan: Hindi Teacher

Divya, Raman: Literature Teacher and Art Teacher

Divya has a B.A. in English Literature and a J.D., and has had experience tutoring college-level students in English and working with elementary children on reading skills.A lawyer by profession, Divya has been a teacher at SILC since 2006.
 

In the 2008-2009 school year, Divya developed a curriculum for an Indian Literature class, which was offered to students who had completed all levels of Social Studies. Divya will return to teaching Literature at SILC in January 2010. This is Divya’s Fifth year teaching at SILC.

Erin OberdorFer: Principal, dance teacher, SILC Board

Erin has MLS in Library Science from the University of Maryland College Park and MM in Music History and Criticism from Peabody Conservatory of Music.
 

She currently works at Dorsey & Whitney, LLP (law firm) as a librarian in the Trial department. She has 3 daughters, the middle one whom is adopted from Hyderabad. She has been involved with SILC for about 6 years and helps out with the younger children's dance. She is serving her first official position this year as Principal.

Geeta Saran: Preschool Teacher

Gayatri Moorthy: Teaching Hindi level 4

Gayatri was born and raised in Mumbai, India and completed her Masters in Economics, and completed MBA from British Institute, Mumbai. Came to USA in 1998 and have been in Minnesota ever since.
Gayatri has 2 daughters Preeti (8yrs) and Priya (4 yrs ). This is her second year at SILC.

Gupthan Namboodiripad: Malayalam Teacher

Jeyanthi Govinthan: Children’s Dance - Assistant Teacher

Jeyanthi comes from a town called Dindigul in Tamil Nadu, India. After completing her Bachelor in Nursing in Coimbatore, she got registered in Nursing and landed in Minneapolis, MN in United States of America. Though working in most critical department of the Hospital i.e. Operating Room, she always had a love for good music and dance. She joins SILC this year to teach students Indian Dance forms along with other colleague (Amrit). She is a busy mother of two boys, and says that teaching Dance to children is like unwinding from the whole week’s tiredness

Jothsna Harris: Preschool Teacher

Jothsna was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with parents from Bangalore, India. Graduate of the University of Saint Thomas in 2001 with B.A’s in Political Science and Environmental Studies. She is currently working for Rasmussen College as a Financial Aid Officer.
 

Jothsna is married to Rasheed Harris and they have 2 children, Navina (5 years old) and Aajay (2 years old).
This is Jothsna’s first year at SILC, she has a passion for working with children and currently she volunteers at her church developing curriculum and teaching children’s classes.

Kali Kanwar: Children's Dance - Assistant Teacher

Krishnan Nambudiripad: Ex-President, SILC Board

Krishnan Nambudiripad has been involved with SILC as a student, teacher and board member for about 15 years. He grew up in Burnsville, MN and completed the Masters in Elementary Education program at the University of Minnesota.
 

Currently he works as a mortgage consultant for Wells Fargo. As a student at SILC in the 80's he participated in dance, tabla, yoga, and language and social studies classes. Currently at SILC he enjoys playing Tabla and teaching social studies. At home he loves biking, playing guitar, and spending time with his family.

Krupali Shah: Gujarati Teacher

Krupali shah is employed at Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, Minneapolis. She worked as a Physics Lecturer in India for three years and have also conducted Yoga and Meditation classes. She is certified in conducting Yoga and Meditation. She has written spritual articles for local Gujarati Newspaper.
 

Krupali is an active youth representative at Jain Center of Minnesota. She loves to Travel and likes to participates in Social Activities.

Lakshmi Buddhavarapu: Secretary, SILC Board

Lakshmi Buddhavarapu is an Information Technology professional currently working for Medtronic. She has a Master’s in Biochemistry and Engineering, both from the University of Minnesota. She taught Preschool/ Kindergarten last year and this is her second year with SILC as secretary of SILC board.
 

She lives in Vadnais Heights with her husband Jagadish and their son Teja (6). She enjoys biking, traveling and spending time with family and friends.

Lata Menon: Adult Dance Teacher

Lata and her family came to SILC towards end of 1998 and fell in love with it! Over the years Lata has been a Cookies-and-Juice spread-outer volunteer, Malayalam teacher and has substitute taught, Hindi, Arts, Social Studies etc. Lata has always been a willing assistant with the Children and Youth dance groups for the past many years. Lata has been an enthusiastic participant in the SILC Adults dance program. In 2000, Lata and her husband Raj were the coordinators for the Festival of Nations Exhibit on behalf of SILC.

Lata is especially proud of the Hindi Level 1 & 2 and Malayalam Level 1 booklets she has compiled. Lata loves to read all kinds of fiction, is an acknowledged (by her husband!) expert on Bollywood movies and loves Indian songs in 3 languages – Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil.

Lata is a Human Resources person by profession and though currently works much harder at trying to convert her Burnsville home to heaven!

Mangala Achar: Kannada Teacher. SILC Board (Treasurer)

Mangala is from a small village, Kadatoka in North Kanara district in coastal Karnataka. She completed her Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Karnataka REC, Surathkal. She worked in Electrical industry for 3 years in India before coming to USA. In USA she worked in software field for 10+ years. At present she is a home maker with lot of volunteer activities. 

She is married to Krishnananda Achar and has two sons, Manu(13 years) & Vishnu(9 years). She enjoys reading, cooking, beading, sewing, walking, biking & learning new things. She has been involved with SILC from 2002 and has been teaching Kannada from 2004. She has also been principal and currently the treasurer at SILC. She is also an active Board member of IAM (Indian Association of Minnesota).

Mary Kate:  Children's Dance - Assistant Teacher

Maulika Kohli: Social Studies Level-3 Teacher

Maulika Kohli, a junior at St. Paul Academy and alumni of SILC, has been the assistant teacher of social studies level 3 for the past two years under the guidance of her brother Keshav Kohli. Maulika will be the lead teacher this year for the class.

Maulika has vigorously studied cultural studies and world history through a meticulous high school curriculum. She has diligently observed and managed the classroom under her brother’s teachings and has gained the experience to know how the classroom should properly function in order to create an inviting and educational atmosphere.

In her free time, she enjoys reading, singing, spending time with family, golfing and playing the piano. Additionally, she tutors elementary age students in English and Math at a local women’s shelter. This is Maulika’s third year in teaching social studies at SILC

Nidhi khandelwal: Hindi Preschool Teacher

Nidhi graduated with a B. Com degree from Kanpur Univeristy, India. She is married and have two kids aged 4 years and 12 weeks.

Nidhi worked at Walmart's accounting office for 2 years.

Neelam Malhotra: Dance Teacher and SILC Board (Volunteer Coordinator)

After completing her M.Phil in Economics from Gokhle Institute in Pune, India, Neelam worked as a Lecturer of Economics in Pune (of-course that was in the ancient times). During her School and college years, she also pursued training in Bharatnatyum from age 11 to 24.

Neelam is now a stay-at-home Mom and Home-maker (not that her home reflects that fact!). And in her free time (all of 2 minutes a day), she teaches Bharatnatyum. Neelam and her family, husband Raj, daughter Meera (11 years) and son Sesh (8Years), have been involved with SILC since 2001 and thoroughly enjoy it. She currently teaches Dance classes at SILC and is also SILC Board member.

Padam Sharma, Ph.D : Nepali Teacher - padamsharma@comcast.net

With B. Sc (Agric) from Udaipur University, and B.S., M.S., & Ph. D. from the University of Minnesota, Padam has about 25 years of experience in teaching, research and consulting services in the United States and Nepal. A long time resident of St. Paul, Padam is an active member of expatriate Nepali community in Minnesota. Padam is the founder President of Empower Nepal Foundation (ENF). Padam and his family currently own and operate Everest on Grand – the first Nepali restaurant in Minnesota.This is Padam's second year teaching nepali at SILC

Pradip (Prad) Das: Bangla Teacher

Prad Das born in Jamshedpur, India. He graduated from BIT Mesra, Ranchi in computer science. Currently lives in Blaine, MN with his family. He had Hindi as a 2nd language till his high school.
He is a current Blaine City Park Board commissioner. He plays soccer in his off time and also provides coaching for Blaine Soccer club

Praveen Puligundla: Sports Teacher

Praveen is working as a Software Engineer for Valspar Corporation and has been in the software industry for the past 9 years.

He graduated from Arizona State University, Phoenix with a Master's degree in Computer Science. He enjoys playing sports, watching movies and listening to music.

Punjabhai Patel: Yoga Teacher - punjabhaibpatel@netzero.com

Punjabhai Patel is teaching Yoga at SILC for the past 25 years (since 1984-85 school year). He came to United States of America as an undergraduate student in 1965 and did his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering. He is grandfather of four beautiful children and is enjoying his retirement.

Raj Menon: SILC Board

Raj is an Information Technology professional, currently working at Boston Scientific. He is a graduate of Delhi University. He lives in Burnsville with his wife Lata and two children Aishwarya and Aradhana. Raj loves to play Table Tennis, though he cannot find partners, when he finds the time!
 
His association with SILC spans over many years and he served SILC donning different roles as Principal, President, Social Studies teacher

Ralph Davini: SILC Board (Marketing and Fund Raising)

Ralph Davini is serving his second year on the SILC Board of Directors with a concentration on Fundraising. With undergraduate (Aeronautical) and graduate (Electrical) Engineering degrees from the University of Minnesota, Ralph enjoyed an eclectic engineering career of 25 years, including wind tunnel, high temperaure and combustion facilities, and automated process control. This was followed during the past 15 years with a second career of operations management at the downtown Minneapolis district utility plant.

Ralph and his wife Mary Pat have had their daughter Mary Kate in SILC for eight years. As lifelong residents of Saint Paul, they enjoy walking all the streets they can find in town. As parents of eight other grown children, they are also now collecting grandchildren - four on hand and another one coming. Ralph also enjoys cooking the odd Italian dish, although he has recently discovered the wonders of Indian cuisine as well

Reshmy Narayanan: Hindi Teacher

Reshmy Narayanan- Has post graduation and BEd in English. Had been working as an English teacher in India for 7-8yrs. Presently working in Boston Scientific. I have been involved with SILC for 3yrs.Teaching Hindi level- 2 last year & this year Hindi level-3

Riya Arora: Hindi Level 2 Teacher

Riya moved to Canada from India in Sept 1995 where she worked as Quality controller. She worked in Canada Immigration Department for 3 years. She has done her masters degree and computer software associated degree from India and did study in Canada in Computers.
 

She moved to USA in 2004 with her family. She is married to Sanjeev Arora who works as assistant professor at U of M, and has two daughters; Nitali & Dipali. Both of them are SILC students.

Sapna Das-Bradoo, Ph.D. Social Studies I Teacher

 

My grandparents moved from Kashmir to Delhi in 1920s. I completed my Ph.D. in Microbiology from Delhi University, India. Then I moved to Lund University, Sweden for a short time. I moved to USA six years back. Currently I am a Scientist at the University of Minnesota where I work on Cancer research. My husband Subhas Das is also a Scientist at the U of M.  I have two sons, Shwetanshu (8 yrs) and Aditya (3yrs). This is my first year teaching at SILC.

In my spare time (which rarely happens), I love to read books and listen to music.

Sarah Hansen: Literature Teacher and Art Teacher

Sarah is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. She is pursuing a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction. Her studies focus on the educational experiences of first and second-generation immigrant students, families, and teachers.
 

Her academic interests stem from her experiences as a teacher both locally and abroad. When she is not studying, Sarah enjoys strolling around the city lakes, taking photographs, and cooking vegetarian dishes.

Seema Nambudiripad: Hindi 1 Adults Teacher

Seema Nambudiripad was born in Delhi and grew up there. Her parents are originally from Kerala but moved to northern India in the 60s. She has a BA and an MA in French from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi.
Seema also studied Portuguese as an optional language along with French and was in Coimbra, Portugal, as a scholarship student for a year in 1995-96. She has been in the US since 1998 and lives with her husband and two sons in St Paul.

Shalley Gupta, Ph.D: Social Studies 2 Teacher

Shalley came from Chandigarh, India to the USA in March of 1983 as a student. Shalley has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Medical College of Ohio, Toledo. He did 3 years of post-doctoral research at the Harvard Medical School, and since 1991 worked in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development at Eli Lilly, SmithKline Beecham and 3M Pharmaceuticals. At present, He is working as Medical Science Manager with Bristol Myers Squibb.
 

He has authored more than 2 dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals and 5 issued patents, in addition to several filed patent applications.He is married to Gita J Gupta and has 2 daughters: Mahima (11 y) and Malvika 6 (y). They moved to the twin cities in 2001 and live in Woodbury, MN

Shiv Bhatia: Hindi-1 Teacher, Assistant Principal. SILC Board

A former military officer, Shiv served in the Indian Army for many years on a variety of assignments, most of them in counter-insurgency and anti-terrorism roles. After hanging his uniform, he has been learning the art of Corporate “Warfare”. Currently, he works for DST Systems, Inc, as Director of Operations and Client Services, in the healthcare vertical.
 

A die-hard outdoors person, he will do anything not to stay indoors. An avid griller who also enjoys cooking on the stove top, Shiv lives in Woodbury with his wife, Varsha and two lovely daughters, Suparna and Sahana.

Siva Jasthi: Telugu Teacher, SILC Board (President)

With Ph.D from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, Dr. Jasthi has about 15 years of experience in research, software development and teaching in India and United States. He has published around 4 papers in peer-reviewed journals, around 25 papers in conferences, contributed a chapter to a book – based on his research. He currently works at Siemens PLM Software as Development Manager. He also teaches at Information and Computer Sciences department, Metropolitan State University as community faculty.
 

He volunteers for "Chetana Foundation" – a charity organization supporting an orphan school in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India. He lives with his wife, Bhas and kids (Tapan – 13, Deepta – 7 who are SILC students), enjoys spending time with his family, blogging, teaching, telugu music, movies, travel, ethnic foods, and volunteering. This is Jasthi's fourth year teaching Telugu at SILC.

Sofia Ali: Dance Teacher

Sofi was born in England and grew up in Canada. Her father is from Hyderabad and mother is from Rome, Italy. Sofi attended The American University in Washington, DC and then the Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She completed a medical residency at St. Paul Ramsey Medical Center (now Regions Hospital) in St. Paul (where she met her husband, David Caccamo). Sofi works part time at Eagan Child and Family Care Clinic as a Family Physician. Sofi also has a Masters degree in Public Health and consults on a project regarding childhood asthma.

She also volunteers at her children's school.Sofi and David have three children, Adrian (8) , Juliet (6) and Subin (5). Subin lived in Kerala until he joined their family last year. This is the family's 4th year in SILC. Sofi helps teach the youngest dancers the choreography that Neelam creates. Sofi likes cooking, eating, walking, traveling, movies, music, theater, gardening (but not weeding!) and spending time with her family and friends.

Sona Das: Bengali - Assistant Teacher 

Sona Das, born in Calcutta West Bengal. She did her Bachelor of Commerce from Bombay University. Further she did Diploma in Millenium Secretaryship from Davar's collage of Commerce, Bombay. Currently she has been running her own Travel agency Business past 12 years.  She is the owner of Mega Travels Inc. <http://www.megatravels.us>  This is Sona's first year of teaching Bengali at SILC.
 
Sonja Agarwal: Social Studies 1 Teacher

Sonja grew up in Northfield, MN. She attended Luther College in Decorah, IA and received a major in Social Work. Sonja worked at Microsoft for 3 years in Seattle. Sonja decided to be a stay at home mom after the birth of their first child.
 
This is Sonja's second year volunteering with the Social Studies class. She has 2 sons in the program: Rohan (4th grade) and Nikhil (2nd grade). Her husband is Mukesh Agarwal and they live in Lakeville.

Sridevi Mahavadi: Hindi Level -4 Teacher

Subhash Mehta: Tabla Teacher - subhashm4@gmail.com


Suganya Chandrasekaran: Tamil Teacher


Sunita Mannamkunnath: Hindi Teacher

Sunita has been associated with SILC for many years and has been helping and participating in various SILC activities. Her daughters, 12 and 7 attend SILC regularly. With a full time job and family to keep her busy during the week, Saturdays are a day of volunteering to give back to the community.

She enjoys gardening, reading, traveling. This is Sunita's second year teaching Hindi. 

Varsha Bhatia: Social Studies 1A (Kindergarten) Teacher 

Originally from Maharashtra, India, Varsha has been in the US for over 15 years. She has an undergrad in Mathematics and a graduate degree in Computer Science from UMass. She has been a Kumon instructor in CO and has now donned the cap of Math educator. She lives in Woodbury with her husband Shiv and two beautiful daughters, Suparna and Sahana.

Varsha likes to be involved in the community, and loves spending time with her family. In her spare time, she likes listening to music, solving Sudoku and crossword puzzles.

Vishnu Namboodiripad: Malayalam 1 Teacher

Vishnu is 14 years youngest teacher at SILC. He is in 8th grade. He knows how to speak Malayalam and was brought to SILC to learn how to read and write it. He is with SILC for 10 years, and started teaching 2 years ago as a Teachers Assistant for the previous Malayalam teacher. Starting 2008-09 year, he started teaching Malayalam on his own.
 
He is also a Student at SILC. He is currently in Literature Class and in electives. His hobbies include video games (no wonder – kids connect with him), computer, reading, writing, tennis, and biking.