KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

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Professor Penny Hay (online)

Professor of Imagination, Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, Bath Spa University, UK

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Dr. Penny Hay is an artist, educator and researcher, Professor of Imagination Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries, Reader in Creative Teaching and Learning, Bath Spa University and Founding Director House of Imagination. Signature projects include School Without Walls and Forest of Imagination. Penny’s doctoral research focused on children’s learning identity as artists. Penny is strand leader for Creative Pedagogy in the Policy, Pedagogy and Practice Research Centre, and co-chair of the eARTh research group focusing on education, arts and the environment. She was recently the co-investigator on an Erasmus+ project Interstice in Europe researching the space between art, children and educators, and artist researcher on the AHRC funded Rethinking Waste Compound13 Project in Mumbai. Penny was awarded an Honorary Fellowship at Arts University Plymouth and a Fellowship in Imagination at the Centre for Future Thinking; she is a National Teaching Fellow and Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching.

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Daya Dissanayake (in-person)

Distinguished Novelist and Poet

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Daya Dissanayake is a bilingual writer who won the SAARC Literary Award in 2013 and the Sri Lanka State Literary Award for the Best English Novel, for three out of six novels published in print in Sri Lanka. He shared the award for the first ever Swarna Pusthaka for the Best Sinhala Novel. He has published 10 novels and 1 poetry collection in English and 6 novels in Sinhala. He published the first Asian e-novel in English and also the first Sinhala e-novel. He is Fformer Country Coordinator, International Conference on Buddhist Archaeology in China and South Asia, and former Coordinator in Sri Lanka for the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL). For more information: www.saadhu.com

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​Professor Ammaraj Joshi (in-person)

Central Department of English, Tribhuvan University (TU), Kirtipur, Nepal

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Amma Raj Joshi is a Professor of English, former Head of the Central Department of English (CDE), Tribhuvan University, and Former Vice Chancellor of Far Western University, Nepal. He is a literary critic, poet, story writer, and translator educated in Nepal, India, and the USA. He holds a PhD degree in environmental literature. He is a Writing Fellow of Iowa University, USA, where he was trained in creative writing. While working as a faculty of Tribhuvan University, he has been the Chair of the English Subject Committee, a Member of the Faculty Board, a Member of the Research Committee of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, a Member of the Academic Council, and Senator of the Tribhuvan University.

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Professor Ram Prasad Chaudhary (in-person)

Emeritus Professor at Tribhuvan University (TU), Kirtipur, Nepal

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Ram Prasad Chaudhary is an Emeritus Professor at Tribhuvan University (TU), Kirtipur, Nepal, and Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). He obtained Ph.D. Degree in Plant Systematics and conducts research in conservation biology, and plant-environment relationships and livelihoods of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities (IPLCs). Prof. Chaudhary has over 45 years of experience in teaching, research and academic administration at the Central Department of Botany, and Research Centre for Applied Science and Technology (ReCAST), Tribhuvan University, Kirtipur. He also served as a member of the National Planning Commission of Nepal; Chair of the Board of Governors of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Lalitpur; Trustee of the National Trust for nature Conservation (NTNC), Lalitpur; team leader of national, regional transboundary (Bhutan, China, India and Nepal) and international (Norway, Italy, USA) biodiversity conservation collaborating programmes. He has contributed to policy formulation for the Government of Nepal (GoN) in the fields of biodiversity and environment; and has widely travelled on foot in the mountains of Nepal Himalaya. A new plant species from Nepal, the Saussurea ramchaudharyi (Asteraceae), is named after him. He has edited, authored and co-authored books and has published well cited articles.

 

 

 

 

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Professor Gregory F. Tague (online)

Professor Emeritus, St. Francis College, N.Y., U.S.A

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Gregory F. Tague, Ph.D. (1998 NYU) is Professor Emeritus, St. Francis College, N.Y., where he founded the Evolutionary Studies Collaborative and hosted Darwin-inspired Moral Sense Colloquia. His most recent books include An Ape Ethic and the Question of Personhood (2020) and The Vegan Evolution (2022). His new book, Forest Sovereignty: Wildlife Sustainability and Ethics, is scheduled for release in 2025. Tague’s current interests focus on environmental and animal ethics. Visit him at https://sites.google.com/site/gftague/