Swapnaa Jayaraman

Scientist, New York University

Resume | CV


My life runs on two tracks: I am a research scientist by day and a community advocate by night, and I love finding ways to bring the two tracks together. I enjoy taking on challenges - the bigger, the better - and I thrive in environments where uncertainty is the norm. I enjoy an opportunity to understand a problem in depth, work with smart and empathetic collaborators on ideas, and see the solution through to the finish. This page describes some of my recent endeavors.


Pudiyador

Pudiyador is an education-based community empowerment organization that uses a cradle-to-college approach to transform impoverished urban communities in southern India.


At Pudiyador, I work on our mission to give every person the opportunity to overcome the negative forces of poverty. I lead a fantastic team and work with outstanding partners to find sustainable ways to improve the wellbeing of all members of our communities while preserving their dignity.





Here are some achievements that I am proud of:

  • We are a multi-center community empowerment organization that grew from a backyard program
  • We are now a $100k budget, 33-employee, umbrella organization serving 8 communities with centralized operations with a dedicated donor network that includes funding agencies, recurring individual donors and corporate donors
  • In addition to our core and ground teams, we have a supporting 501(c)3 organization in the US to broaden our outreach and facilitate foreign contributions
  • We have enabled the transformation of the lives of over 800 children and 1200 families by designing and establishing community-wide programming .