Trustees of the Anusandhan Trust constitute the governing board. The Trustees are responsible for the overall vision and mission and provide guidance, act as a sounding board and the final authority for the redressal of grievances, and intervene if there is a crisis. Similarly, individual Trustees involve themselves with the work which is of direct interest to them and also provide advice and guidance to the researchers and administration when called upon to do so.
Dr. Patel is one of the founder members of Anusandhan Trust and is associated in Board of Trustees since its inception in August 1991. She is superannuated from TISS, Mumbai in June, 2020 where she worked as Professor at Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Development Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences from July, 2017 after her superannuation from SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai in June, 2017.
She was Vice-President of Indian Association for Women’s Studies (2020-2023). Currently, she is an Expert Committee member of School of Gender and Development Studies, IGNOU, Delhi. Prof. Vibhuti Patel is Ph.D. in Economics, University of Mumbai. She was awarded a Post Doctoral Visiting Fellowship to the London School of Economics and Political Science from the Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK in 1992-93. She has authored and co-authored 12 books;
Dr. Padmini is associated as a Trustee of Anusandhan Trust since October 2008. She is a former Director of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai, where she also held the post of the Reserve Bank of India Chair in Regional Economics till her retirement from the Institute in 2011. After retirement, she was invited to join the faculty of the newly opened Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad where she became Professor and Chairperson of the School of Livelihoods and Development and held the post till May 2017.
From June 2017 to February 2019, she was Visiting Professor at the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad. Swaminathan’s research work covers the areas of industrial organization, labour, occupational health and skill development – all from a gender perspective. Her recent publications include: (co-edited) book titled Reverse Subsidies in Global Monopsony Capitalism:
Dr. Deshpande is one of the Founder members of Anusandhan Trust and is associated as a Trustee since its inception in August 1991. In spite of being a medical doctor Dr. Mohan Deshpande has been working in the field of health. He gave up his clinical work in 1993 and began a unique work which he fondly call Health Communication, a vastly different concept and practice from that of popular health education.
It’s a rights based work, rooted in people’s culture of communication, now spread across the country in various states in rural, tribal, semiurban and urban areas. He has a group of likeminded people called Aarogya Bhan Collective or simply AaBha. They aim at developing a culture of health communication. AaBha has been able to reach out to about more than 30,000 people through its various activities and training workshops. He is a health communicator for about 27 years.
She is associated with Anusandhan Trust as a Trustee since September 2016. Dr. Sagade was a Director of Centre of Women’s Studies Centre, Vice Principal (retd.) ILS Law College, Pune. Dr. Jaya Sagade: Retired as Director of Women’s Studies Centre and Vice-Principal at ILS Law College, Pune, where she taught Women and the Law; and Family Law; Human Rights for 32 years. Her areas of research are gender equality, women’s human rights, violence against women, right to reproductive health.
She has a range of publications in these areas. Oxford University Press has published her book on Child Marriage in India and Routledge has published Women’s Human Rights in India. She has worked extensively with national and international academic institutions, UN agencies such as WHO; Government of India and Maharashtra and with NGOs.
Dr. Dhruv is a Board of Trustee with Anusandhan Trust since its inception in August 1991. One of the Founder members of the Trust. Graduate in medicine. A leading spokesperson on Primary Health Care in Maharashtra. He was Director of VACHAN, a Nashik based NGO, for ten years.
He rejoined the same organization as Honorary Director, after a break for MacArthur Fellowship. He has worked in the as Senior Consultant with the School of Health Science, Yashwantrao Chavan Maharashtra Open University, as well as with national and international organizations like BAIF, Tata Trusts, Actionaid, UNFPA, SEWA Bharat, EU, The Habitat Trust in the past. Currently, he is Secretary, VACHAN’s board and a consultant with HCL Foundation, Noida.
Dr. Padma Prakash is one of the founder members of Anusandhan Trust and is in Board of Trustees. Since it’s inception in August 1991. Doctorate in Sociology, Specialistion in sociology of medicine and health, sociology of sports, academic journalist, women’s rights and health activist.
She is a Editor/Director, eSocialSciences, an Asia focused repository and publication space, a unit of IRIS Knowledge Foundation. She was formerly Acting Editor/Associate Editor, Economic and Political Weekly.
Dr. Jagadeesh is associated with Anusandhan Trust since February 2025 as a Board of Trustees. Dr. Jagadeesh.N is Professor of Forensic Medicine at Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences, Bangalore. He has been honorary consultant with CEHAT since 2007 and has played a key role in designing the comprehensive healthcare response model to sexual violence. He has led as faculty for training of healthcare providers on medical ethics, domestic violence and medical examination of sexual violence cases.
He is currently a member of the policy and clinical practice guideline development group for responding to violence against women, appointed by the WHO. Dr. Jagadeesh N has been on the faculty of the Gender Mainstreaming in Medical Education program. He is former president of the Karnataka Medico-Legal Society. He is former Editor of the Journal of South India Medico-legal Association and is associated with Forum for Medical Ethics Society / Indian Journal of Medical Ethics. He was honorary faculty at Virtual Medical University, Hyderabad.
Dr. Jain is associated with Anusandhan Trust since February 2025 as a Board of Trustees. He has a teaching experience of 25 years across institutions including the Postgraduate Department of Law, University of Nagpur; Savitribai Phule Pune University; Bharti Vidyapith’s New Law College, Pune; MP Law College, Aurangabad; and most recently the ILS Law college, Pune where he taught for 14 years and also held additional charge as Principal from 2020-2022. Dr. Jain self-identifies as totally blind since birth and is passionate about disability rights.
In 2004, he received the National Award in the ‘Employee Category,’ instituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, from former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. Recently, his scholarships have been cited by Hon. Justice D Y Chandrachud, Supreme Court of India in (i) Vikash Kumar v Union of India Feb 2021, which held that an individual suffering from dysgraphia or writer’s cramp is entitled to a scribe in the Civil Services Examination; and (ii) The State of Jharkhand V Brahmputra Met. Ltd. Dec 2020.
Dr. Ameerkhan is associated with Anusandhan Trust since February 2025 as a Board of Trustees. He is Co-Coordinator-SOCHARA, The Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action (SOCHARA), a community health and public health organization where he makes contribution towards Training & Research Associate and Coordinator CEU, Tamil Nadu.
He has dedicated 2 decades of efforts towards community health action through research, enquiry, reflection, innovation and taking into account the socio-political-cultural-economic-environmental context. This ‘community health’ approach is also being nurtured in the next generation of community health leaders through its fellowship and other training programmes.