About Us
Skilled technical experts with rich international experience who work really hard for clients.
The Sustain Labs Core Team
Dr. Miniya Chatterji
Joseph Rajini Asir
Chief Executive Officer
Creative Director
Sustain Labs
Sustain Labs
Rhea Mukerjee
Executive Director
Sustain Labs
Dr. Miniya Chatterji was Chief Sustainability Officer of Jindal Steel & Power group of companies 2014 - 2017. Prior to that she was working at the World Economic Forum 2011-2014 in Geneva where she managed the WEF’s Young Global Leaders Community in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia. Before that, Miniya was managing a Euro 200 million hedge fund in Paris for a few years. She started her career in finance at Goldman Sachs in 2006 in London. Earlier, Miniya worked as policy analyst with Jerome Monod, the Chief Counsellor to the President of France Jacques Chirac 2003 - 2006. Miniya is a Jury Member for the Million Dollar Global Teacher Prize and for The Circulars award that is given away each year at Davos. Miniya is a member of the parliament of Francophone writers. She is a columnist for The Indian Express and The Pioneer newspapers. Indian Instincts - essays on freedom and equality in India was Miniya’s first book. The book was published by Penguin Random House and launched in India in March 2018, then in Switzerland, Singapore and Sri Lanka and is translated in Bengali and French languages. Miniya has a PhD from Sciences Po Paris. She was a research fellow at Columbia University and Harvard University. She is a Global Leadership Fellow alumna of the World Economic Forum.
Joseph Rajini Asir is a visual artist and communications designer specialising in photography and illustration. He has over ten years of experience in the various fields of project management, photography, branding and visualisation across large and small organisations such as Amazon.com, Buzzfeed, The Ladies Compartment etc. Before Sustain Labs, he worked with the external communications department at Anant National University where he also taught courses on photography, light and visual journaling. He is currently the creative director at Sustain Labs and is responsible for designing both internal and external communication materials along with
conceptualising and visualising ideas for in house research and development.
Beyond creative direction, he is engaged in researching about setting up spaces and engagements that enable free thought and self reflective engagements. He has a post graduate degree in photography from National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, India and a bachelors degree in commerce from Loyola College, Chennai, India.
Rhea Mukerjee has a decade of experience working across organisations that include the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development and E3G in France, and Tata Consultancy Services in India. Rhea is a self-confessed hoarder of house plants, a yoga enthusiast and a strong believer of the fact that e-books can never replace real books. She has a bachelor’s degree in economics from University of Delhi and a master’s in public affairs from Sciences Po, Paris, where she studied environmental policy.
Dr. Priya Rajagopalan
Director of Research
SLP Stargazers Foundation
Dr. Priya Rajagopalan, PhD, has more than 20 years of experience teaching economics, public policy, quantitative methods, and marketing at Purdue University, Krannert School of Management. She has received the highest honor from Purdue University for the undergraduate excellence in teaching. Prior to arriving at Purdue, Priya lectured at Pomona College and was also the Assistant to the President of Williams College. In 2014, she joined the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Industry Relations as a business solutions director to support the recruitment, curriculum development, and mentorship for new businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs at Nebraska Innovation Campus. Priya’s strongest contribution to UNL was establishing partnerships with government agencies and companies and acquiring the prestigious Association of Public Land Grant University designation (APLU). She received her BA in Economics from the University of Madras and MA and PhD in Economics from Wayne State University, Michigan. She currently serves as a team member for UNL human trafficking and migration initiative.
Praanjal Agarwal
Associate Director
Innovation for Impact
Sustain Labs
Praanjal has earlier worked at Reliance Industries Limited and the National Innovation Foundation-India (Government of India), where he gained diverse and extensive experience in clean energy, IPR, policy research and grassroots innovations. He specialises in the field of core Biotechnology with a Masters in the subject from Manipal University and in Business Sustainability for which he has earned a MBA from TERI School of Advanced Studies. He is a wildlife lover, cartoon enthusiast, ardent photographer, sustainable traveler and a gastronome.
Sheik Mohamed Ishaq
Associate Director
Design
Sustain Labs
Sheik Mohamed Ishaq, is a postgraduate from the National Institute of Design, Gandhinagar. He works across the domains of information technology, academics, digital archiving, system design, marketing, editorial designing, exhibition production and more.
Dr. Gireesh Shrimali
Senior Fellow
Sustain Labs
Dr. Gireesh Shrimali is a Research Scholar at Stanford University. He is also a visiting scholar at the Center for Climate Finance and Investment at Imperial College as well as the Singapore Green Finance Center at Singapore Management University. Previously, he was the Director of Climate Policy Initiative’s India Program, and a Research Fellow at the Sustainable Finance Initiative as well as the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University. He has taught at Johns Hopkins University, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Indian School of Business, and Indian Institute of Management.
His research focus is on renewable energy finance and policy, on the catalytic role of finance in getting to the 2C climate target, and on pathways for provision of low-cost, long-term capital for clean energy transition. His work has included topics such as analysis of India’s renewable policies, the impact of federal and state policy on the development and deployment of renewable energy in the USA, and business models for off-grid energy in developing countries. He is also focusing on ESG issues, such as climate financial risk measurement and management, strategies for net zero transitions, and transition bonds as well as Scope 3 emissions.
He holds a PhD from Stanford University, an MS from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and a BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. Prior to his academic/research career, he has over nine years of industry experience designing high-speed networking and computing systems.
Dr. Soma Mishra
Climate Scientist and Associate Director
Sustain Labs
Dr. Soma Mishra is an Environmentalist and active in research, writing, and teaching. Earlier, as a recipient of the DAAD fellowship Soma worked in the University of applied sciences, Dresden as a Visiting Scientist. She is actively associated with the River Bank Filtration group in India and abroad, especially those funded by the European Commission. Her research ascertains, broadens and develops various dimensions of emerging contaminants in the water systems and their effective removal. She works on the degradation and detoxification of complex industrial and municipal wastewater pollutants by bioaugmentation and phytoremediation approaches for sustainable development. She also specializes in the field of use of wastewater for agricultural purposes and the management of solid waste at the organizational level by sustainable approaches. She also works on indoor air pollution. Soma holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
Priyanka Agarwal
Analyst
Sustain Labs
Priyanka specialises in issues related to urban management, data modeling, and finance. She holds a Masters' degree in Management Studies from CEPT University, India.
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Sophie Collet Khanna
Director, International strategy
Sustain Labs
Sophie is a higher education consultant and a former journalist. A French citizen, she has been calling Mumbai home for more than 12 years now. She launched her own consultancy, Inducation, in 2021, to support French and international higher education institutions who want to expand their presence in India (communication, PR, corporate partnerships, university partnerships, recruitment of students).
Before taking the entrepreneurship leap, Sophie worked for her alma mater Sciences Po as their India Representative for six years. She was in charge of different missions: Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate promotion strategy, university partnerships, student exchanges, business relations, press relations, organization of events, Alumni network etc. Before that, she spent a decade working as a journalist for various publications, in France and in India.
Sophie also is a French Foreign Trade Advisor in India, which makes her part of a network of 4,500 business people and experts nominated by the French Prime Minister to promote France’s development in their respective countries. She graduated with a Masters degree from Sciences Po in 2005.
Erica Dorr
Senior fellow
Sustain Labs
Erica Dorr started her academic career at the University of Berkeley (United States) where she graduated in ecology and environmental biology. She then continued her studies at the University of Paris Saclay with a master’s in climate, land use and ecosystem services. She is interested in the development of food systems that are more environmentally sustainable and fairer from a social point of view. She is currently a doctoral student at AgroParisTech and is working on the environmental impacts of urban agriculture and the development of a simplified assessment tool. As part of her doctoral project, she uses the life-cycle assessment method. Her research interests also cover sustainability sciences, urban ecology and industrial ecology.
Our Work
We Teach What We Practice
We set up a course in 2017 on Creating Sustainable Businesses for Masters level students at SciencesPo Paris, which our founder, Dr. Miniya Chatterji has been teaching since the past 3 years. This course is taught at 2 prestigious schools at SciencesPo - Paris School of International Affairs and the School of International Management and Sustainability. Till date, Sustain Labs has taught and trained 300 international students on how to create sustainable businesses.
As part of the Naropa Fellowship in Ladakh, Sustain Labs trains local entrepreneurs every year on how to create sustainable businesses. Since 2019, we have trained more than 120 local entrepreneurs in the Himalayan Region.
We Work Globally
India
M-611 Jal Vayu Towers
Sector 56,
Gurgaon, India - 122011
UAE
Villa 136, Golf Links, Emaar South, Emirates Road, Dubai, UAE.
New Zealand
1346 Dominion Road
Mount Roskill
Auckland, New Zealand 1041