LEXINGTON, MA–Vision-Aid, a non-profit organization serving the visually impaired, announced several notable additions to its leadership team for 2023-24.
This year’s 100% volunteer Vision-Aid Leadership team includes its 15-member Board of Directors (BOD), 14-member Board of Advisors (BOA), and 5-member Council of Youth Ambassadors, which provides leadership in the area of community engagement, inclusion and advocacy, with a special focus on youth.
The combined team includes an eminently qualified and diverse range of members drawn from a wide range of fields including Ophthalmology, Optometry, Occupational Therapy, Finance, Technology, Health, Management, Academia and Law. Notably, 18 of the 34 members in the leadership team are women.
The new team begins its tenure in July 2023 and has as its immediate focus, its annual event on July 23rd, coming back with live artists on stage for the first time in 4 years! For the first time the show will also be live streamed on Zoom. Vision-Aid has a track record of sold-out shows with 700+ attending each year for the past 15 years.
This year’s additions to the leadership team include:
Jaya Vatsyayan
Jaya attained a PhD in Life Science from Institute of Molecular Medicine, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan ROC. Prior to this, she obtained her training in Molecular Biology at National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, and a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Banasthali
Vidyapith, Rajasthan, India. Jaya conducted her postdoctoral research at Hillman Cancer Center, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and at Children’s Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania, USA. She transitioned from preclinical to clinical research after moving to the Biomedical hub in Boston metro area and continued her journey as a Biotechnology professional while working at prestigious companies such as Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Biogen, Shire/Takeda, and CRISPR Therapeutics. She is passionate about clinical and translational science, and about bringing medicines and cures to patients. Jaya is a member of the Indian Americans of Lexington (IAL) Library Committee and has participated in various initiatives to raise funds for Lexington’s Cary Memorial Library. Jaya began her term on the Cary Library Foundation Board in 2019 and also serves on the Science Cafe committee supported by this Foundation. Outside of work and volunteering, Jaya enjoys dancing, singing, reading, and writing. Together with her husband Dr. Sudhir Ranjan and their children, Sujay Utkarsh and Janya Utkarsh, Jaya believes in Vision-Aid’s cause to enable, educate, and empower the visually impaired.
Dr. Nilesh M. Sheth M.P.H., M.D.
Dr. Nilesh M. Sheth is an experienced Cataract, LASIK, Cornea and Anterior segment specialist. Dr. Sheth not only has performed over 35,000 surgical procedures, but he has remained at the
forefront of his field throughout his career. He was the first to perform Corneal Inlay procedures for reading vision correction in New England. He has a private practice in Stoneham and Woburn, Massachusetts and also is affiliated with leading institutions such as Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital.
Dr. Sheth is a native of the Detroit metropolitan area. He received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Michigan, where he graduated with honors and earned a merit scholarship. He then graduated from Wayne State Medical School with honors for all four years. He completed his internship at the Detroit Medical Center and finished his Ophthalmology residency at Summa Health System, an affiliate of the Cleveland Clinic. He also served as Chief Resident. Dr. Sheth went on to do a two-year fellowship in Cornea and Refractive Surgery at Louisiana State University, the center where Refractive Surgery first began in the United States.
For the last decade, Dr. Sheth has also been active in community services projects across the world. He has provided surgical care for the indigent and underserved, bringing back vision to those that are blind. In his recent medical mission trip to Colombia, in early 2023, their team helped over 3700 indigents, indigenous peoples, and refugees in remote and isolated areas. They performed 148 surgeries and distributed over 3300 eyeglasses and reading assistive devices.
Ritu Goswami Chawla
Ritu brings an effective mix of skills, enthusiasm, compassion, and global orientation with her years of leading teams in finance and economics at multinational corporates like Dow Chemical
and Philips. With more than two decades living around the world in Singapore, Mumbai, Wellesley, and more, has given Ritu broad experience and perspectives to appreciate the complexities of doing business around the world. She has applied her business acumen and global exposure to several key business management and real estate advisor positions.
In her Financial and Credit senior management roles, and as focal point for Global reporting, Ritu’s strong executive presence and communication skills motivated teams to consistently deliver improved business processes, and business outcomes. She managed cross functional teams at leading multi-nationals to optimize Order to Cash cycle; improvements in the end-to-end process related to cash payments; collection activities and credit risk management and mitigation. She also made significant contributions to the improvement of the wellbeing of employees with innovative support systems.
With her entrepreneurial spirit and passion for real estate, Ritu joined Gibson Sotheby’s International Realty in their Wellesley Office as a global real estate advisor. Sotheby’s global reach and experience in managing transactions of exceptional homes provides a broad range of choices for her clients in the Greater Boston area.
Ritu supports many charitable causes and serves on the board of Pratham, that is a well-known charity for its education to the underprivileged in India. She believes in supporting the town hall, local businesses, schools and is involved in community services. Ritu has a master’s in business administration and enjoys oil painting and photography.
Revathi Pillai
Revathi is an engineering professional and is currently Chief Engineering Officer and Senior Vice president at a public safety company. After completing her MS in Electrical Engineering from
University of Alabama, she completed MBA from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign and Executive Leadership program from Cornell University.
Revathi has been a sponsor and volunteer of Vision-Aid annual events since 2010. She has sponsored and fundraised various charity projects including SOLACE and MPower Magic Academy.
Revathi supports various STEM programs by mentoring and volunteering at various science and engineering activities at MIT and various Massachusetts State level events. Revathi is very passionate about empowering and protecting women rights. She is a founding member of the Boston Chapter of Chief Organization, a support network for women executive leaders. Revathi has expressed her passion through leadership roles in global associations like Federation Of Kerala Association of North America (FOKANA) and MANTRAH.
Revathi is an entrepreneur and has a company, Vishwas, along with her daughters, focused on all-natural hair growth oil.
Revathi is a passionate Indian classical dancer, singer, and yoga enthusiast.
Ronak Wakhlu
Ronak Wakhlu, who did an outstanding job in mobilizing many events for Vision-Aid in the past year which successfully mobilized high school youth volunteers, will continue as Youth President for 2023-24.
The Vision-Aid leadership team comprising of Puran Dang (Chairman Emeritus), Veena Handa (Vice Chair), Lalit Sudan (President) , Revathy Ramakrishna (VP, Co-Founder) and Ramakrishna (Ram) Raju (Founder, Executive Director) warmly welcomed the incoming team, and sincerely thanked outgoing members Dr. Partha Ghosh and Vineeta Kumar who have completed their terms.
To meet the other members of the leadership team and learn more about their profiles, please visit https://visionaid.org/about-vision-aid/
About the July 23rd annual event
Following in its 15+ year glorious tradition of holding spectacular Broadway style events, Vision-Aid is set to dazzle again with Ramachandran Muralidaran’s remarkable dance musical “The Son of The Wind, The Saga of Hanuman” – a new production of this renowned choreographer, which will make its global debut in New England on July 23rd at 4PM in Littleton, MA.
This year’s Broadway-style show is set to raise the bar yet again. It is centered on the story and life of Lord Hanuman and presents many compelling aspects of this timeless Indian epic hero in a rich and vibrant choreography. The show will be featuring over 50 talented dancers and several dance teachers from New England, working under the guidance of renowned and award-winning dance choreographer and producer from India, Kalaimamani Madurai R. Muralidaran. Boston area dance teachers – Jeyanthi Ghatraju and Sripriya Natarajan Moorthy and Dhanashree Madiwale-Karmakar are the lead Artistic Directors for this year’s production, ably supported by Dance Teachers Sheetal Dwaraka, Aishwarya Chakravarthy and Kalaimangai Anbalgan. Senior dance mentors Shilpa Narayanan, Krithi Sekaran, Chitanya Gopu, Roopa Modha, Radhika Narayanaswamy, Tejasvi Bhadrinath, Divyanka Gupta are training the 50 plus performers in the production.
