Leadership and Team

Vandana Prapanna

Senior Curator, Indian Miniature Paintings

Core Faculty, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Vandana Prapanna joined Museum in 1994 after completing her M.A. in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology and M.A. (Fine) Museology. She has successfully curated and co-curated important permanent and temporary exhibitions in the Museum. She contributed entries on Indian Miniature Paintings in the CSMVS catalogues and guidebooks. She has also contributed to co-authorship several publications on Indian Art.

She was awarded the Nehru Fellowship by the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collections at the V&A, London (2011) and the Asia Foundation Brayton Wilbur Memorial Fellows in Asian Art Program’ at San Francisco (USA) in 2013. She has also participated in International Training program at the British Museum London (2010).

Aparna Bhogal

Curator (Archaeology)

Dr. Aparna Bhogal, joined the Museum in 1998. Her area of special interest is archaeology, numismatics and art history. She has curated the permanent gallery of Inscriptions and temporary exhibitions ‘Mummy: An Unsolved Mystery – Conserving Mumbai’s Egyptian Treasures’ (2016) and Devi (2013) based on CSMVS collections. Over the years she has contributed in various national, international exhibitions, setting up of permanent galleries as well as the Museum publications. She has a Diploma in Indian Aesthetics from Jnana Pravaha, Mumbai, an Master’s degrees in Ancient Indian Culture from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and in Museology from M.S. University, Vadodara, PhD in Archaeology from Deccan College, Pune.

Mrinalini Pathak

Curator (Miniature paintings and manuscripts)

Dr Mrinalini Pathak has been working with the CSMVS since July 2009. She has coordinated special exhibitions “Three Dimensions of Divinity: Thanjavur Art Revealed” (2022) “Indian Life and People in the 19th Century Company Paintings from The TAPI & CSMVS Collections” (2018), Krishna as Poet (2019) for the Krishna Art Gallery and Kolkata Through Colonial Eyes (2017) for the Prints and Drawings Gallery as well as the reorganisation of the Indian Sculpture Gallery (2012). She has also been part of the curatorial teams for the reorganisation of Money Gallery (2020), Indian Metal and Decorative Art Gallery (2016) and Indian Miniature Painting Gallery (2010). She co-curated Devi (2013), a temporary exhibition based on the CSMVS collection.

She obtained her Doctoral degree from the University of Mumbai in 2005, on the topic “Temple Institution during Peshwa Period: A socio-economic Study”. She has studied the Modi script from Itihaas Sanshodhan Mandal, Mumbai.

Nilanjana Som

Curator (Art)

Faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Nilanjana Som is the Curator of the Arts collection at CSMVS, overseeing a diverse range that includes costumes-textiles, jewellery, arms-armour, and decorative arts. She curated temporary exhibitions showcasing the collections of CSMVS, such as ‘Masters: A Glimpse of the European Arts Collection’ in 2023 and ‘Enduring Memories: 100 Years with the Tata Collection’ in 2022.

Holder of dual Masters in Museology and (Medieval) Indian history from the University of Delhi, Nilanjana Som was awarded the Nehru Fellowship in 2014 to study the Indian arms collection housed in various museums in the UK. She has been involved in permanent galleries, temporary exhibitions, collection management, and other programs since joining the Museum in 2015. In 2022, she participated in the British Museum’s International Training Programme.

Nilanjana is part of the Editorial team of the CSMVS Research Journal and has contributed articles to it. Her fascination with museums lies in the multitude of stories each object holds and the unique contribution each of these objects makes to the human story.

Nilanjana is one of the co-curators of the international exhibition Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome in partnership with the British Museum, State Museums of Berlin and the J. Paul Getty Museum. In what is a first in India and perhaps the world, the exhibition was curated by 5 women curators through a process of global co-curation along with colleagues from partner museums. This has enabled a new approach towards research, interpretation and presentation where Indians have curated global collections for an Indian audience.

Prasanna Mangrulkar

Assistant Curator (Paintings and Education)

Dr Prasanna Mangrulkar has been working in the Museum since 2007. He received a doctoral degree from the University of Nagpur for his thesis on The Chitrakathi Tradition of Maharashtra: An Ethno-artistic Study.

Manoj Chaudhari

Assistant Curator (Natural History)

Faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Manoj Chaudhari has been working with the CSMVS for the last past 13 years, taking care of the collection its documentation and conservation of the natural history exhibits of the museum. He curated the exhibition “Kawach: Protective Covering of Animals” in 2017 at the CSMVS. He has also mentored the students of the PG Diploma programme at the CSMVS for their exhibition “On The Rocks: Rocks, Minerals, Fossils” which was based on the Natural History Collection. He was helped curate the travelling exhibition “Fossils: Impressions of the Past” for the Museum of Wheels project. Manoj has an MSc in wildlife biodiversity from the MS University, Baroda. He is the faculty member as well as an alumnus of the PG Diploma in Museology and Conservation of the CSMVS. Apart from this, he has participated in the Waterfowl census under Forest Department, Gujarat. and Leopard census, Jambughoda wildlife sanctuary, Gujarat.

Divya Pawathinal

Assistant Curator (Non-Indian Art

Faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Divya Pawathinal has been working in the Museum since 2012 overseeing the East Asian and European art collections of the CSMVS. Her role involves collection research and management, support for in-house and external exhibitions. She curated Icons of Faith (Dec 2019), on the Indo-Portuguese Christian collection of the CSMVS.

Divya is one of the co-curators of the international exhibition Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome in partnership with the British Museum, State Museums of Berlin and the J. Paul Getty Museum. In what is a first in India and perhaps the world, the exhibition was curated by 5 women curators through a process of global co-curation along with colleagues from partner museums. This has enabled a new approach towards research, interpretation and presentation where Indians have curated global collections for an Indian audience.

She is the coordinator of the Dr Devangana Desai Endowment Programme at the CSMVS. She is responsible for the collections and curatorial content for the CSMVS online platforms and is part of the editorial team of The CSMVS Magazine and Annual Review. Apart from this, she has been involved in numerous educational and cultural programs.

She has an M.A. in History and a PG Diploma in Museology & Conservation Studies from the University of Mumbai. She was a fellow to the ‘Dresden Summer – International Academy for the Arts’ 2016, held at Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Germany.

Siddharth Waingankar

Jr. Artist (Natural History)

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Pratik Aroskar

Exhibition Associate

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Vaidehi Savnal

Curator (Education and Public Programmes)

Core Faculty, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Vaidehi Savnal leads the Museum’s Education and Outreach Department through the Children’s Museum and Museum on Wheels initiatives and public programming, as well as the Post Graduate Diploma in Museology and Conservation in affiliation with the University of Mumbai. Vaidehi enjoys working on curatorial projects, interpretation and writing, and her interests lie in exploring the potential that museum objects and stories have in aiding the process of self-discovery and in promoting a sense of personal and societal well-being. Her role involves liaising and building partnerships with international and Indian cultural institutes through collaborative projects including exhibitions, research, capacity building and skill-sharing programmes.

Vaidehi has curated several exhibitions including Entwined: The Story of Humans and Animals, Aboard the Spaceship and Ancient Sculptures for children, and What’s in a Name? which displayed Shakespeare’s First Folio from the British Library. She has also co-curated the exhibitions Traversing Tibet: through the lens of Li Gotami and Early Photography and Archaeology in Western India with the British Library.

Vaidehi has authored three books; The Young Curators Handbook, A Mischief of Rats and other Collective Nouns and Two Peas in a Pod and other Idioms published by the CSMVS Children’s Museum and has contributed to several national and international journals. She has delivered a TEDx talk exploring narratives of the exhibition India and the World: A History in Nine Stories.

Vaidehi is one of the co-curators of the international exhibition Ancient Sculptures: India Egypt Assyria Greece Rome in partnership with the British Museum, State Museums of Berlin and the J. Paul Getty Museum. In what is a first in India and perhaps the world, the exhibition was curated by 5 women curators through a process of global co-curation along with colleagues from partner museums. This has enabled a new approach towards research, interpretation and presentation where Indians have curated global collections for an Indian audience.

Meagan Vaz

Education Associate, Children’s Museum

Meagan Vaz has completed her Masters in Ancient Indian Culture, from St. Xavier’s Autonomous College. Previously she worked as an early childhood educator, curriculum developer and ECCE teacher trainer. She is also a storyteller who has completed a professional development course under the ECDA guidelines, Singapore. She has also taught children with special needs. Narrating stories and planning activities for children is something that she enjoys.

Thomasina Dsouza

Education Associate, Children’s Museum

Thomasina D’souza has completed her master’s in zoology. She has also completed her PG Diploma in Museology and Conservation from CSMVS and a diploma in Early Childhood Care and Education. She enjoys telling kids about the natural world and inculcating in them the idea that each of them can become green crusaders or nature warriors and the responsibility of safeguarding our environment is in our own hands.

Resham Gudhekar

Education Assistant, Children’s Museum

Resham holds a double Master’s in History from the University of Mumbai, and Dance (Bharatanatyam) from Kavikuluguru Kalidasa University, Ramtek, Nagpur. She is a trained Bharatanatyam dancer, a disciple of Guru Dr Sandhya Purecha, and part of her Repertory group. She has also completed a Certificate Course in Archaeology from the Centre for Extra Mural Studies, University of Mumbai.

At Children’s Museum, she conducts sessions, guided tours, and educational activities for children. With her expertise in dance, she wishes to incorporate her dance training to connect dance with the museum collection and interpret it for learners, especially children.

Gaurav Jadhav

Education Facilitator, Museum on Wheels

Gaurav has been working on the project since 2017 and is actively involved in logistical coordination, designing educational activities and forging relationships with institutions for executing bus visits within and outside Maharashtra. He has completed his Bachelor’s degree in Accounting and Finance from L.S. Raheja College, Mumbai which is reflected in his keen interest in the maintenance and operations of the bus and the resources it provides. Owing to his experience and background, he attempts to curate content continuously according to the interest of his audiences.

Chinmay Gawde

Education Facilitator, Museum on Wheels

Chinmay holds a Bachelor’s Degree in History and a Master’s Degree in Archaeology from the University of Mumbai. He holds a Diploma in Photography from the Sir J.J. School of Arts. Keenly interested in the field of Museum Education, he enjoys interacting with young minds, teachers and local citizens when on visits. He strives to reach a diverse audience through the Museum on Wheels Project and make museums a fun learning experience for them.

Atreyee Chakravarty

Education Facilitator, Museum on Wheels

Atreyee is involved in planning exhibitions, organizing events and conducting educational activities for the bus. She aims to work towards making the museum experience accessible and meaningful to all through innovative techniques and ideas. She has a background in museology and history so working in this sector has always interested her. She hopes to contribute further to taking the museum to more varied audiences through her role at the institution.

Nikhil Ramesh

In-charge curator of Conservation section

Core faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Nikhil Ramesh is a conservator with over 12 years of experience in conserving objects of varied material compositions and has been with the CSMVS since 2015. Nikhil is involved extensively with documentation, condition assessment, scientific analysis, conservation of objects of varied compositions, exhibition support, and capacity building through various educational programmes at the Museum. He has also been part of the CSMVS conservation team working at Dar al Athar al Islamiyyah, Kuwait. Nikhil was a Fellow of the Indian Conservation Fellowship Program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, supported by the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, where he specialised in photographs conservation. He is also an alumnus of the Leon Levy Centre for Conservation Studies, Nagaur, in partnership with The Courtauld Institute of Art. He has a BSc. Physics and Photography.

His published articles are The Colour of Darkness: Analysis and Conservation of a Meiji bronze incense burner, CSMVS Research Journal 2018-2019 and The Bandaged Thumb: A Preliminary Investigative Report for the CSMVS Newsletter Volume 10 Issue 1; 2017.

Dilip Mestry

Conservation Assistant

Faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation

Dilip has been associated with the CSMVS museum since 2008. He is primarily responsible for study and treatment of three-dimensional objects of various materials and technologies. Not only is he extensively involved in conservation of objects, documentation, condition assessment, mounting and storage of the objects and various national international exhibitions, he also provides administrative and organizational support at the conservation centre. He has been a fellow of the Indian Conservation Fellowship Program-2018 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York supported by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation and The Ministry of Culture, Government of India, where he specialized in Objects Conservation. He has a BFA (Painting) from Sir J. J. School of Fine Art, Mumbai and PG Diploma in Museology and Conservation.

Prajakta Jadhav

Conservation Assistant

Prajakta Jadhav has over 9 years of experience in textile conservation and has been with CSMVS since 2011. She plays a major part in conserving the collection of over 2000 textiles in the CSMVS collection. She has also contributed towards exhibition display for various national and international exhibitions. She works in close co-operation with Rafoogars (traditional darners) that are an important element of CSMVS.

Her Bachelors in Visual Arts from SNDT women’s college, Churchgate gives her the eye for detail and the patience required for working on textiles. She has a Masters in Indology and PG Diploma in Museology and Conservation. She was a fellow of the Indian Conservation Fellowship Program 2022 at SRAL supported by the Andrew W. Mellon foundation and the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, where she experienced the methods and practices of textile conservations around Sweden.

Nivedita Dhage

Conservator-Restorer (on Project)

Faculty member, Postgraduate (Diploma) Program in Museology & Conservation.

Nivedita has been in the field of conservation since 2013, and completed her Masters in Conservation from National Museum Institute, New Delhi.

She has worked at the CSMVS for more than six years on the conservation of art objects of a variety of materials, ranging from wood and metal to paper and paintings. Her key responsibility besides working in the conservation laboratory is to carry out environmental monitoring during exhibitions to ensure that the valuable and fragile art objects are well taken care of.

Swapnil Sutar

Conservator-Restorer(on Project)

Swapnil has worked as a Conservator since 2012 and has been at the CSMVS since 2015. He has worked on different types of objects both organic and inorganic like metal, wood, ivory, stone, oil paintings etc. Swapnil has a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art (Drawing and Painting)and has completed a Conservation training course at National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property, Lucknow

Rashmi Ail

Project Manager

Rashmi oversees project-related activities which include documentation, communication, social media outreach, monitoring and reporting. Coordination and organisation of exhibitions, workshops, technical meetings and training, liaising with experts and institutions is also an important aspect of her work, as is building internal and external networks and managing stakeholders. She holds a Masters in Ancient Indian Culture, History and Archaeology and is currently pursuing her PhD (Ancient Indian Culture) from the Asiatic Society of Mumbai affiliated with the University of Mumbai.

Shannan Castelino

Sr. Curatorial Assistant

Shannan Castelino has a M.A. in History and a Post Graduate Diploma in Museum and Conservation Studies from the University of Mumbai. She was part of a team under Dr. Pheroza J. Godrej that curated the successful exhibition ‘Across Oceans and Flowing Silks from Canton to Bombay 18th – 20th century’ as well as part of research team for the Prints Gallery at CSMVS. She joined the Museum in 2015, as a Senior Curatorial Assistant. Since then, she has worked in setting of permanent galleries as well as temporary exhibitions besides developing the Museum Archive.

Prachee Sathe

Production Manager

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Bhavdatt Patel

Senior Administrative Officer

Bhavdatt Patel has been working at the CSMVS since 2013. He has previously had over 9 years of experience from various institutions in Administration and Events. He has a post-Graduation certificate from EMDI Institute in Event Management and a degree in Commerce from Mumbai University. His expertise is in administration, coordination with departments and organizing events on large scale at CSMVS.

Manish Ambre

Chief Accountant

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Archana Sakpal

Jr. Administrative Officer

Archana Sakpal has been working at the CSMVS as Jr. Administrative Officer since 2015. She is responsible for all Human Resources and administrative functions. Prior to this Archana has had over 12 years of experience in various industries in Human Resources. She has completed her post-graduation from the Maharashtra Institute of Labour Studies (Masters of Labour Studies) Mumbai University, a Diploma in Personnel Management and Industrial Relations from an Autonomous University and her Graduation in Arts (Sociology) from Mumbai University.