Dr Deborah Thiagarajan is the President and Founder of Madras Craft Foundation/DakshinaChitra. Dr Thiagarajan is an Art Historian with a PhD in Ancient Indian History and Culture from Madras University, an MA in South Asian Regional Studies (University of Pennsylvania) and an MA in International and Development Education (University of Pittsburgh). She has conducted three years of anthropological research in villages in Western Tamil Nadu for the Tamil Nadu Nutrition Project and CARE. She served as Founder and Convenor of the Tamil Nadu Chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) for fourteen years and is best known for founding, conceptualising, strategising, and implementing the iconic DakshinaChitra Museum and its parent body, the Madras Craft Foundation.