Our Team

Mallika Tharakan is a social scientist working in the development sector for the last 14 years. She has a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the TATA Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She currently plays the role of the Results Delivery Officer and Lead, Knowledge Management at KHPT. She was a journalist with the New Indian Express before she found her call and crossed streams.

Her expertise is in designing community centred program models, Social behaviour change strategies, and strengthening grassroots community institutions. She leads strategic communications, branding and knowledge translation at the organisation level. She also liaisons with the Board and thematic teams to ensure delivery of organisational priorities for impact. She has led the design of several community-based tools and processes that have been scaled at national and global levels.

She has been a resource person with UNDP and BMGF to design and implement community mobilization strategies in Tanzania and North-Eastern India. She has several publications and abstracts to her credit. Mallika is passionate about creating an equitable society for the most vulnerable and socially excluded populations in India. She has dedicated her professional career to do exactly that!

Manoj is a public health professional with more than 10 years of experience in health systems research and program implementation. He has years of experience in leading implementation research and population-based randomized controlled trial programs. His expertise lies in designing, implementing, and ensuring quality improvement techniques for improved health care; he brings experience in the organization of chronic care systems especially at the primary healthcare level. He is recently engaged in designing and implementing population-level programs in the area of non-communicable diseases, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health. He is leading the quality improvement and quality of life portfolio in the CPHC thematic area at KHPT; in the past, he led an urban health system based project aiming to strengthen the continuum of care for non-communicable disease in primary health care settings. He has several publications in peer-reviewed, indexed international/ national journals.

Dr Suresh Chitrapu, Deputy Director, Communications has worked at KHPT for over a decade. He has more than 15 years of work experience in the areas of community engagement at the grassroots and community mobilization of marginalised and socially excluded groups.

He specialises in planning, designing and implementation of behaviour change, outreach and communication tools and strategies for public health programs. He has the experience in developing and directing various audio-visual aids, using creative art forms such as intimate interactive theatre and folks art and music. He has working experience in deferent themes such as HIV AIDS, Tuberculosis, mother and child health, nutrition and non-communicable diseases facilitating capacity building programme with various focussed group such as female sex worker, sexual minorities, people living with HIV aids,, adolescents, panchayat members, front line health workers. He is the recipient of PhD fellowship from the International Infectious Disease and Global Health Training Program offered by the University of Manitoba, Canada.

Vrinda Manocha handles communication and knowledge transfer activities for the TB, Maternal and Child Health and COVID-19 thematic areas of KHPT, while also supporting organizational communication efforts. She has been with KHPT since 2017, working on knowledge product development, communication strategies, branding, and documentation. She has co-authored two award-winning case studies on KHPT’s TB interventions, helped develop communication materials for the Central TB Division, and documented Karnataka state’s efforts to contain COVID-19 in 2020. Vrinda is particularly interested in converting intervention findings and stories from the ground into impactful easy-to-understand formats and layouts tailored for different audiences. She finds editing a meditative and therapeutic activity.

Vrinda previously worked as a Business Correspondent with the Thomson Reuters news agency in Bengaluru, covering healthcare companies in the United States. She holds a Master’s Degree in Development from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, and a BA in Journalism and Communication Studies from Manipal University.

With an M.Phil and MA in Sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Ms. Majumder has fourteen years of work experience in the development sector. A major part of her professional career has been at the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), in various capacities from being a Research Associate to Sr. Programme Manager.

Over the years she has successfully implemented and managed projects around a range of issues- food security, violence against women, mother and child health, adolescent health, etc. with a specific focus on menstrual hygiene management, and water, sanitation, and hygiene. The issue of gender and social inclusion has been the core of all projects she has been associated with and implemented.

Ms. Majumder has worked on various projects supported by leading grantmakers like the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF), Ford Foundation, BMGF (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), DFAT-WfW (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Government of Australia- Water for Women, Sesame Workshop India and J-PAL (Abdul Jamal Poverty Action Lab). She has also been responsible for the creation of content and designed newsletters, posters, leaflets, and other IEC/BCC materials, in association with the designated designers across projects.

During her stint, she had had the opportunity to work in various parts of the country including New Delhi, Kochi (Kerala), Bengaluru (Karnataka), Pune (Maharashtra), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Jaipur (Rajasthan), and Kolkata (West Bengal).

With a Master’s Degree in Journalism, Avinaash Kastura leads KHPT’s communications for the Adolescent Health thematic area.

With more than 12 years of combined experience in advertising, journalism, and the development sector, he has experience in communications, documentation, managing social media campaigns, and organizing events.

Avinaash started his career as a journalist with NDTV-HINDU  and later moved into the development sector. In his first role, he worked for the Banyan, a mental health organization, and then with REACH, an NGO working for the welfare of TB patients. Before moving to KHPT, he worked as a Media Consultant at United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Avinaash is a lover of travel and filter coffee, and lives by the mantra Live, Laugh, Love!