Meet The Team
Learning Through Many Lenses
The Wandering Academy is grounded in a single, simple belief: learning happens best when the mind is mobile. We move pedagogy out of a static classroom and into active environments, where students do not just study theory, but work directly with practitioners to understand the complex systems that shape our world. Our learning team is composed of field-led experts who facilitate this transition, bridging the gap between academic theory and active reality through rigorous inquiry and shared exploration.
Nikhil Kumar
Learning Designer & Field Facilitator · Climate, Sustainability & Human Systems
Nikhil founded The Wandering Academy with a simple belief: meaningful learning begins when students step beyond the classroom and engage directly with the systems shaping the world around them. His work has taken him from glacier research expeditions in the Himalayas to climate resilience initiatives, sustainability projects, and community-based programs across India. Drawing from experiences in climate science, environmental learning, and grassroots engagement, he designs field-learning experiences that help students understand the connections between ecosystems, livelihoods, governance, and society. TWA, he leads the design of immersive programs that encourage students to observe deeply, ask better questions, and develop systems-level understanding through exploration, reflection, and applied learning.
Jayati Patwal
Architect & Learning Experience Designer · Cities, Infrastructure & Governance
Jayati brings together architecture, urban development, and systems thinking to create meaningful learning experiences rooted in real-world inquiry. Her work explores how people interact with cities through public spaces, infrastructure, transportation networks, institutions, and the built environment. With experience spanning architecture and urban development, she helps students uncover the often-invisible systems that shape everyday life. At TWA, she designs immersive learning experiences that encourage curiosity, critical thinking, and deeper understanding of how communities, cities, and public systems evolve and function.
Ayush Garg
Urban Sustainability Facilitator · Urban Development & Environmental Systems
Ayush is an urban planner whose work focuses on the relationship between cities, communities, governance, and environmental sustainability. His experience spans environmental planning, urban resilience, air quality initiatives, and citizen engagement programs across multiple cities. Through his work, he has explored how planning decisions, public policy, and community action influence the way cities grow and respond to environmental challenges. At TWA, he helps students understand cities as living systems by exploring the connections between urban development, sustainability, governance, and everyday life.
Smriti Chhachhia
Community Learning Facilitator · Communities, Identity & Social Change
Smriti works at the intersection of education, youth development, and community engagement. With experience in social work and learning facilitation, she has worked with students, teachers, communities, and youth groups across diverse educational and social contexts. Her work focuses on creating environments that encourage reflection, empathy, participation, and meaningful dialogue. TWA, she helps students engage with human systems—exploring themes of community, identity, inclusion, wellbeing, and social change through thoughtful interaction and reflection.
Praveen Sharma
Himalayan Field Facilitator · Mountain Ecosystems & Place-Based Learning
Praveen brings years of experience working in the Indian Himalayas through field expeditions, environmental learning programs, and outdoor education initiatives. His work combines mountain knowledge, environmental stewardship, wilderness safety, and place-based learning. Having spent extensive time in remote Himalayan landscapes and local communities, he helps learners engage more deeply with mountain environments and the people who call them home. At TWA, he supports immersive field-learning experiences that encourage students to build stronger connections with nature, understand mountain ecosystems, and learn responsibly within fragile environments.
Nathaniel Bhakupar Dkhar
Honorary Advisor & Sustainability Mentor · Systems Lens: Water, Waste & Youth Empowerment
Nathaniel believes that meaningful learning begins when students can see how environmental and social systems shape the world around them. His passion for nature, sustainability, and community development encourages learners to move beyond theory and understand real-world challenges through observation and inquiry. His experience spans water resources management, climate adaptation, wastewater management, environmental sustainability, pollution control, and community-based development initiatives. He has contributed to projects focused on water security, climate resilience, Himalayan ecosystems, and sustainable resource management, working across research, policy, and field implementation. At TWA, Nathaniel supports the development of learning experiences related to water systems, environmental sustainability, and community resilience, helping students explore the connections between ecosystems, livelihoods, policy, and local action.
Learning Through Many Lenses
What Connects Our Work
The Wandering Academy operates on a framework of active inquiry. We believe that to understand a system, one must occupy the space where it functions. Our work is not about capturing a single truth, but about documenting the friction and overlap between environmental stewardship and human policy. We use a documentary-driven pedagogical approach that strips away the abstraction of traditional classrooms, forcing students to engage with the messy, vital reality of the field.
Whether tracing the urban metabolism of a megacity or the high-altitude water resource management of a Himalayan village, our facilitators guide students through a rigorous mapping of socio-political behaviors. Every session is an editorial act—a shared exploration that results in a deeper, human-centric understanding of the invisible lines that connect ecology, community, and global infrastructure.
Why We Built The Wandering Academy
The Wandering Academy was born from a fundamental observation: learning happens best when the mind is mobile. We built this institute to partner with schools and move learning out of the classroom and into active environments like cities and ecosystems. Students do not just study theory; they work with experts on-site to understand how real-world systems function and overlap. Our model replaces abstract concepts with direct, collaborative dialogue across diverse perspectives and interconnected global systems. It is an editorial commitment to human-driven exploration, mapping the world's complexities through rigorous field study and systems inquiry.