Executive Director, Institute for the Public Life of Arts and Ideas (IPLAI), McGill University
Sheetal Lodhia has been working to foster relationships between academic institutions and the world-at-large, championing interdisciplinarity, collaboration and broad purchase for knowledge. She has a history of involvement in the nonprofit and social innovation sector, working with grassroots organizations, arts-education groups and policy organizations in strategic planning, community engagement and grant acquisition. She sat on the Steering Committee for The Steps Initiative for several years, and now sits on the Board of Directors for The Institute for a Resource-Based Economy (IRBE), the founders of Toronto’s first Tool Libraries.
A doctoral graduate in English Literature from Queen’s University, she has researched and taught in Renaissance poetry, prose and drama, history of medicine, colonialism and cultural studies. She has produced articles, art installations and radio documentaries. She has also completed her first video documentary short. Sheetal also founded Black Leg Productions, a company that is one-part creative production and one-part think-tank. Having lived in two Canadian cities where blackface incidences/events take place, and as a visible minority herself, Sheetal continually asks "why is this still a thing?!", and works to create dialogue so that this will no longer be a thing. As a matter of course, she consumes popular culture with abandon, and harbours fantasies of becoming a pro-tennis player.
Connect with Sheetal: sheetal.lodhia [at] mcgill.ca (Email) | Twitter@BlackLegProd
