Tara Thiagarajan

Last updated

Dr. Tara Thiagarajan
Born
Tara Thiagarajan
Occupation(s)Neuroscientist and Entrepreneur
Years active2000–present

Tara Thiagarajan is the founder and Chief Scientist of Sapien Labs, which has developed the MHQ and the Mental Health Million and Human Brain Diversity Projects. [1]

Contents

Background

Thiagarajan leads scientific research work focused on the impact of environment on the brain and mind. This research has shown that aspects of brain dynamics change systematically with the stimulus environment including education, travel and cell phone use and has described the global decline in mental wellbeing across younger generations and uncovered various of its key drivers. [2]

She was also the founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Madura Microfinance, [3] a microfinance company operating across India which was known for its high cost efficiency [4] and innovative thought leadership. [5] Madura Microfinance was recently merged with Credit Access Grameen. [6] [7] While at Madura Microfinance she produced the film Shakti Rising (Shakti Pirakkudu) on the journey of a rural woman. [8] In 2022, she joined the Governing Council of Krea University in India [9]

Early life and education

She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Stanford University and also completed her undergraduate degree in Mathematics at Brandeis University. [10] [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microcredit</span> Small loans to impoverished borrowers

Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to impoverished borrowers who typically lack collateral, steady employment, or a verifiable credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Many recipients are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. As of 2009 an estimated 74 million people held microloans that totaled US$38 billion. Grameen Bank reports that repayment success rates are between 95 and 98 percent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microfinance</span> Provision of microloans to poor entrepreneurs and small businesses

Microfinance is a category of financial services targeting individuals and small businesses who lack access to conventional banking and related services. Microfinance includes microcredit, the provision of small loans to poor clients; savings and checking accounts; microinsurance; and payment systems, among other services. Microfinance services are designed to reach excluded customers, usually poorer population segments, possibly socially marginalized, or geographically more isolated, and to help them become self-sufficient. ID Ghana is an example of a microfinance institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grameen Bank</span> Bank and microfinancer in Bangladesh

Grameen Bank is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muhammad Yunus</span> Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mental health</span> Level of psychological well-being

Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, influencing cognition, perception, and behavior. According to World Health Organization (WHO), it is a "state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can contribute to his or her community". It likewise determines how an individual handles stress, interpersonal relationships, and decision-making. Mental health includes subjective well-being, perceived self-efficacy, autonomy, competence, intergenerational dependence, and self-actualization of one's intellectual and emotional potential, among others. From the perspectives of positive psychology or holism, mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and to create a balance between life activities and efforts to achieve psychological resilience. Cultural differences, subjective assessments, and competing professional theories all affect how one defines "mental health". Some early signs related to mental health difficulties are sleep irritation, lack of energy, lack of appetite, thinking of harming oneself or others, self-isolating, and frequently zoning out.

Grameen Foundation, founded as Grameen Foundation USA, also known as "GFUSA", is a global 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Washington, DC, that uses digital technology and data to understand very poor people, in detail, and offer them—and the entire ecosystem of agencies and actors surrounding them—empowering tools that meet and elevate their everyday realities. Its CEO is Zubaida Bai. Grameen Foundation's mission is, "To enable the poor, especially women, to create a world without poverty and hunger." According to the OECD, Grameen Foundation’s financing for 2019 development increased by 33% to US$45.5 million.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences</span> Mental hospital in Bangalore, India

The National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences is a medical institution in Bangalore, India. NIMHANS is the apex centre for mental health and neuroscience education in the country. It is an Institute of National Importance operates autonomously under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NIMHANS is ranked 4th best medical institute in India, in the current National Institutional Ranking Framework.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Association for Social Advancement</span>

The Association for Social Advancement is a non-governmental organisation based in Bangladesh which provides microcredit financing.

<i>Banker to the Poor</i>

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty is an autobiography of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus. The book describes Yunus' early life, moving into his college years, and into his years as a professor at Chittagong University. While a professor at Chittagong University, Yunus began to take notice of the extreme poverty of the villagers around him. In 1976, Yunus incorporated the help of Maimuna Begum to collect data of people in Jobra who were living in poverty. Most of these impoverished people would take a loan from moneylenders to buy some raw material, using that raw material to create some product, and then selling back the good to the moneylender to repay the loan, earning a very meager profit. One woman interviewed made no more than two cents per day creating bamboo stools using this system. The list Begum brought back to Yunus named 42 women who were living on credit of 856 taka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grameen family of organizations</span>

The Grameen family of organizations has grown beyond Grameen Bank into a multi-faceted group of both commercial and non-profit ventures. It was first established by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Grameen Bank. Most of the organizations in the Grameen group have central offices at the Grameen Bank Complex in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it began attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.

Grameen America is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit microfinance organization based in New York City. It was founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus in 2008. Grameen America is run by former Avon Chairman and CEO Andrea Jung. The organization provides loans, savings programs, financial education, and credit establishment to women who live in poverty in the United States. All loans must be used to build small businesses.

The impact of microcredit is a subject of much controversy. Proponents state that it reduces poverty through higher employment and higher incomes. This is expected to lead to improved nutrition and improved education of the borrowers' children. Some argue that microcredit empowers women. In the US and Canada, it is argued that microcredit helps recipients to graduate from welfare programs. Critics say that microcredit has not increased incomes, but has driven poor households into a debt trap, in some cases even leading to suicide. They add that the money from loans is often used for durable consumer goods or consumption instead of being used for productive investments, that it fails to empower women, and that it has not improved health or education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mental health in education</span>

Mental health in education is the impact that mental health has on educational performance. Mental health often viewed as an adult issue, but in fact, almost half of adolescents in the United States are affected by mental disorders, and about 20% of these are categorized as “severe.” Mental health issues can pose a huge problem for students in terms of academic and social success in school. Education systems around the world treat this topic differently, both directly through official policies and indirectly through cultural views on mental health and well-being. These curriculums are in place to effectively identify mental health disorders and treat it using therapy, medication, or other tools of alleviation.

Kathryn M. Abel FRCP FRCPsych is the NIHR National Lead for Mental Health Lead. She is an internationally recognised British psychiatrist specialising clinically in resistant schizophrenia and gender-specified service developments. She is a clinical academic, professor of Psychological Medicine and Director of both the Centre for Women's Mental Health and the GM.Digital Research Unit at the University of Manchester.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kashf Foundation</span>

Kashf Foundation is a non-profit organization, founded by Roshaneh Zafar in 1996. Kashf is regarded as the first microfinance institution (MFI) of Pakistan that uses village banking methodology in microcredit to alleviate poverty by providing affordable financial and non-financial services to low income households - particularly for women, to build their capacity and enhance their economic role. With headquarters in Lahore, Punjab, Kashf has regional offices in five major cities and over 200 branches across the Pakistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krea University</span> Private university in Andhra Pradesh, India

Krea University is an Indian state private university located in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh. The Institute for Financial Management and Research was formally integrated under the aegis of Krea University. Krea University houses two schools, School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences (SIAS) and IFMR Graduate School of Business and pioneers Interwoven Learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic</span> Psychological aspect of viral outbreak

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the mental health of people across the globe. The pandemic has caused widespread anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. According to the UN health agency WHO, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, prevalence of common mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety, went up by more than 25 percent. The pandemic has damaged social relationships, trust in institutions and in other people, has caused changes in work and income, and has imposed a substantial burden of anxiety and worry on the population. Women and young people face the greatest risk of depression and anxiety.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on neurological, psychological and other mental health outcomes</span> Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns on mental health

There is increasing evidence suggesting that COVID-19 causes both acute and chronic neurologicalor psychological symptoms. Caregivers of COVID-19 patients also show a higher than average prevalence of mental health concerns. These symptoms result from multiple different factors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Navi Group</span> Indian financial services company

Navi is an Indian financial services company founded by Sachin Bansal and Ankit Agarwal in 2018. Navi operates in the space of digital Loans, home loans, mutual funds, health insurance, digital gold and micro-loans. It currently has $100 million in revenue with $10 million in profit.

CreditAccess Grameen Limited is an Indian microfinance institution, headquartered in Bengaluru, which serves customers predominantly in rural areas. The company is engaged in providing microfinance services to women from low-income households who are enrolled as members and organized in Joint Liability Groups.

References

  1. Oladipo, Gloria (1 March 2023). "Mental health of young adults severely impacted by pandemic – study". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  2. "You, Rewired: How Modernity Changes the Brain". interestingengineering.com. 8 April 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  3. 1 2 "The accidental entrpreneur". IndiaToday.in. 19 April 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  4. "Tara Thiagarajan Wants the Poor to get more out of their Micro Borrowings". Forbes India. 15 March 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  5. "The new think tank". Mint. 9 March 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  6. "CreditAccess Grameen allots over 26 lakh shares to Madura Micro Finance shareholders". The Free Press Journal. 27 March 2023. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  7. "CA Grameen expects NCLT approval for Madura merger in couple of quarters". Mint. 11 November 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2023.
  8. "SALTAF 2010, South Asian Literary and Theatre Arts Festival Recap". smithsonianapa.org. 15 November 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2023.[ dead link ]
  9. "Dr. Tara Thiagarajan joins Krea University Governing Council". PSU Connect. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  10. "A neurology of microfinance". The Indian Express. 15 December 2010. Retrieved 30 September 2023.