Sharada Srinivasan

Sharada Srinivasan is a Professor in the Programme of Heritage and Society in the School of Humanities at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore, India since 2012. Srinivasan started her journey as NIAS as a Fellow (2004-2006), became Assistant Professor in 2006 and served in the role till 2012.

Sharada Srinivasan was conferred with the Dr. Kalpana Chawla State Award for Women Scientists 2011 instituted by the Government of Karnataka.

Srinivasan was co-investigator on a 2010 UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) funded project with Professor S. Ranganathan and the University of Exeter's Dr Gill Juleff. The project was titled Pioneering Metallurgy: Origins of Steel Making in the Southern Indian Subcontinent. She undertook further research on technical evidence for high carbon steel by ancient crucible processes and ancient high-tin Bronzes and the surviving groups in Kerala for manufacture of high-tin bronze vessels and mirrors and lost wax casting. Sharada was recently featured in this site Trowel blazers of University College London on women archaeologists.

She was co-recipient (with Exeter University) of a British Council funded UKEIRI research awards (2009-2011), of a Royal Society-DST award, as well as an ongoing UKIERI-II Award related to developing joint PhD. Programmes in intangible histories including archaeology and performance studies.

In 2009, Srinivasan co-chaired the seventh Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys (BUMA) international conference in Bangalore. The proceedings were published in 2015 in the volume Metals and Civilizations, of which Srinivasan was co-editor.

Danse e-Toile: Nata-raja et le Cosmos (Dance of stars: Nataraja and the Cosmos) was the first ever live, internet-streamed interactive dance and music programme between India and Europe. The event was held in Bangalore on 17 October 2009 as part of the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. What made it more noteworthy were the creative choreography and the amazing synthesis of art, science and advanced technology.

She is also a performing artist specialising in the South Indian classical dance of Bharatanatyam. She has performed and lectured at the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Academy of Arts, for the Chola exhibition, the International Academy of Astronautics, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, INTACH-Belgium, Nehru Centre, London, China Conservatory of Music, National History of Science Seminar, Hyderabad, University of Toyoma, Japan and others. She had a photo-exhibition in June 2008 at Alliance Française Bangalore entitled 'Cosmic Dance of Shiva' on art-science-dance perspectives related to South Indian bronzes and the Nataraja.

Sharada Srinivasan (born 16 January 1966) is an archaeologist specializing in the scientific study of art, archaeology, archaemetallurgy and culture. She is associated with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India, and an Honorary University Fellow at the University of Exeter, UK. Srinivasan is also an exponent of classical Bharata Natyam dance. She was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2019.

The younger of two siblings, Srinivasan was born on 16 January 1966 in Bangalore to M. R. Srinivasan and Geetha Srinivasan. Her father is an Indian nuclear scientist and mechanical engineer and her mother is nature conservationist and a wild life activist. Sharada received her Higher Secondary Certificate from Jai Hind College, Mumbai in 1983 and obtained her BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1987. In 1986, Sharada along with four IIT batchmates codirected, acted in and choreographed for the English feature film, Nuclear Winter which won the Cannes Award in the Special Category for 1988. The movie was produced by Homi Sethna and directed by Zul Vellani. The starcast included Vijay Crishna and Mishu Vellani. The movie was shot in the IIT Powai campus and marked the launch of a successful dance career for Sharda. After completing her master's degree at the University of London in 1989, she continued to research South Indian bronze sculptures during her PhD at University College London, which she completed in 1996.