Education

1995–1998            UCLA, Department of World Arts and Cultures, MFA, Choreography.

Masters Research: Indian women’s folk narratives as a subversive framework for contemporary choreography.

1992–1993            University of Colorado, Denver, Elementary Education Teaching Certificate.

1988–1992            Stanford University, BA, Anthropology with honors. Advisor: Akhil Gupta.

1991                      Undergraduate Fieldwork: rural Gujarat, India

Honors Thesis: Examining efforts by urban elites to preserve men’s dance groups in rural Gujarat. Reader: Renato Rosaldo.

1990            Semester Abroad: School for International Training

                    Focus: Ethnographic Fieldwork; Language Training: Hindi.

                    Independent Study: Exploring the impact of urbanization on Gujarati folk dance.

1998–present
Public Relations and Proposal Writing

• develop website/FB content, press releases, preview blurbs/listings, e-newsletters, fundraising appeals for dance company (parijatdesai.org)
• write grant and corporate-sponsorship proposals

2003–2004, 2008, 2010–2013, 12/14–present
Academic Editor

• content edit and copyedit scholarly books, articles, proposals, and dissertations:
  • in the social sciences (history, anthropology, geography, law, public health)
  • in the humanities (dance/theater history and criticism, ethnomusicology, performance studies, literary criticism)

Rethinking Marxism (2017)

NYU Library of Arabic Literature (2013–2016)

• copyedit English translations of Arabic literature for print and e-book publication
• wrote user’s manual for publishing software

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (2013)

• copyedited articles for a leading journal of women’s and gender studies

2003–2012
Freelance Editor/Writer: public relations/Web content, young adult/children’s fiction, policy advocacy

1999–2000
Proofreader, Team One Advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi), El Segundo, CA.

Services: content editing (developmental, structural, substantive), copyediting, and writing; video, audio, and image editing; e-newsletter layout

Software/Technical Skills:
MS Word/Excel/PowerPoint, Oxygen XML Author
Video: Adobe Premier Pro, iMovie; Publishing: Vimeo, YouTube
Audio: Adobe Audition and GarageBand
Web: CMS, HTML

I edit academic writing in a wide range of disciplines: social sciences (history, sociology, political science, geography, anthropology), humanities (literary criticism, dance/theater history and criticism, ethnomusicology, performance studies), and applied fields (law, public health). 

I have also edited public relations/web content, policy advocacy, and young adult and children's fiction. My writing experience includes technical writing and PR content for web, social media, and e-mail.

I available for part-time projects on an ongoing basis. Projects that require full-time attention or quick turnaround are possible on a case-by-case basis.