Annapurna Mamidipudi was trained as an engineer, after which she set up an NGO that supported vulnerable craft livelihoods and worked with artisan production for nearly two decades in Andhra Pradesh, India. She has trained herself in natural dyeing techniques, and actively assisted production processes of artisan groups, and was instrumental in restarting the extinct practice of dyeing using the traditional indigo vats in Ananthapur. She is an awardee of the Global Social Business Incubator program of Santa Clara University of 2009, member Timbaktu Collective’s General Body, which works in the drought prone district of Anantapur towards food security, and on the executive committee of the Craft Education and Research Centre at Kalakshetra, the premier Music and Dance institution, in Chennai. She is the producer of an album of a musical opera, Pallaki Seva Prabandhamu, directed by renowned classical musician R. Vedavalli.

Her research interests include handloom weaving as livelihood, as socio-technology and embodied knowledge; sustainable agriculture, politics of development and the role of markets in sustaining traditional arts and crafts.

For more details on her research and publications, please visit her profile page at the International Institute for Asian Studies.