Prof. Sudha Gopalakrishnan is the Executive Director of Sahapedia, an online encyclopedic resource on Indian culture and the arts. Previously, she was Founder Director of India’s National Mission for Manuscripts (2003–07), which led a nation-wide effort to survey, document, conserve, and place in the public domain information on one million Indian manuscripts, now a global knowledge resource on www.namami.gov.in.
Sudha Gopalakrishnan has published eight books, several papers and translations in the field of Indian literature, performing arts and aesthetic theory, She was Visiting Fellow at Cornell University, and Professorial Fellow at the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA), New Delhi. She prepared the nomination dossiers and management plans which led to Kutiyattam, the oral tradition of the Vedas and Vedic heritage, and the Ramlila receiving recognition from UNESCO as Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. She has been associated as member or expert consultant with UNESCO committees on Intangible Cultural Heritage and was most recently part of the Lead Consultant Team advising the Government of Punjab towards framing a cultural heritage policy and action plan for the state. She has served on the boards of the Crafts Museum, New Delhi, and the IGNCA, and is Member of the Committee on Traditional Knowledge Systems (IGNOU), of the Steering Group on Digital Library Projects, Ministry of Information