2023-2026 NAHCA Board
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Dr. Asha Shipman
NAHCA Board Chair Dr. Asha Shipman is the Director of Hindu Life and Hindu Chaplain for Yale University. Dr. Shipman earned her advanced degrees from the University of Connecticut. She is an experienced educator, having taught for almost two decades at the high school and university levels. She joined the Yale University Chaplain’s Office in 2013 and in 2016 became the second (and first female) Hindu chaplain with a full-time university appointment in the US. Her Hindu Life Program at Yale offers a space for worship and connection as well as a safe space to consider the contemporary relevance of Hindu philosophies and practices. A pioneer in the field, she is frequently sought out as a speaker, writer, and consultant on Hindu chaplaincy in higher education. Dr. Shipman is a contributor to the first book on Hindu chaplaincy in the US entitled “Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care” (2019) and the author of “Hindu Chaplaincy in US Higher Education” published by the Journal of Interreligious Studies (2020). Dr. Shipman is the founding Chair of NAHCA, an advisor for the Chaplaincy Innovation Lab, a campus fellow of Campus Chaplaincy for a Multifaith World, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Connecticut Valley Hindu Temple Society.
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Shamā Mehtā
NAHCA Vice Chair Ms. Shamā Mehtā was born in India and now calls southeastern Michigan home. A lifelong practicing Hindu, Shamā is a board-certified chaplain through the Association of Professional Chaplains and currently works as a staff chaplain at Beaumont Health. She is also a qualified medical interpreter. Born into a Shaivite sampradaya, her personal perspective and practice of Hinduism is Advaita Vedanta – Non Duality. She holds a Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry (Interfaith Chaplaincy). Shamā also represents Hinduism on local interfaith panels and speaks on a variety of topics as they relate to Hinduism.
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Sanjay Mathur
NAHCA Membership Co-Chair Mr. Sanjay Mathur serves as the Hindu Affiliate of Spirituality & Religious Life at Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the past president and currently on the Board of Trustees at the Hindu Temple of Rochester and also serves on the Board of Directors of Heritage Christian Services which supports individuals with special needs. He is a long-standing and very popular invited speaker for the annual Global Citizenship Conference held by Nazareth College’s Hickey Center of Interfaith Studies and Dialogue and has delivered talks on Hinduism at conferences held by Duke and Georgetown Universities. Sanjay has also been involved in Research Workshops on Spirituality and Health at the Duke Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. Sanjay is among a handful of Hindus in the US with clinical pastoral education experience, that is to say, professional learning and credentialing recognized in the domain of healthcare chaplaincy. Sanjay has very recently been appointed as a Hindu affiliate of Spirituality & Religious Life at his alma mater, Rochester Institute of Technology. For his vocation, Sanjay works in the field of IT.
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Bindu Gupta
NAHCA Membership Co-Chair Bindu Gupta is a paraprofessional middle school teacher who also teaches yoga, meditation, and mandala art. She holds a master's degree in sociology and a bachelor's in psychology and education. She believes her spiritual journey has brought her to the Inter-religious Chaplaincy Program at the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley and to the Hindu Community Institute. She is deeply grateful to both educational institutions for this wonderful opportunity to prepare herself as a Hindu and interfaith chaplain to serve humanity. She looks forward to serving the Hindu diaspora in a university setting. She is happy to be able to serve a variety of minority communities and is very excited to be on this pathway.
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Vineet Chander
NAHCA Resource Development Co-Chair Vineet Chander has pioneered the work of Hindu chaplaincy in American higher
education as the nation’s first full-time Hindu chaplain. Since 2008 he has served at Princeton University where he has built a robust Hindu Life program. Vineet earned his Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington University Law School and his Masters in Religion from Rutgers University; he is currently pursuing a doctorate in Higher Education at New York University. He has also served as an adjunct professor, attorney, and communications consultant. His areas of specialty include Bhakti theology, models of pastoral counseling, and the Hindu-American diaspora community. Vineet’s writing has appeared in many publications, and he is co-author of Hindu Chaplaincy (Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, 2017) and co-editor of Hindu Approaches to Spiritual Care (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2019). |
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Dr. Brahmachari V. Sharan
NAHCA Resource Development Co-Chair Dr. Sharan is a founding member of the North American Hindu Chaplains Association. He serves as the Director for Dharmic Life and Hindu Spiritual Advisor at Georgetown University where he is also an adjunct professor in the Departments of Linguistics, Asian Studies, and Theology & Religious Studies.
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Preeta Banerjee, PhD
NAHCA Treasurer Preeta Banerjee, PhD is the first Hindu chaplain at Tufts University. She has been a spiritual companion who draws on a broad and deep range of experience, having spent over 20 years in academia, coaching and consulting as an advocate, educator, researcher, and author. She is a strong voice for combining spirituality, creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and social change. Her passion lies in creating brave spaces at the intersection of contemplation, activism and healing and deepening in spiritually fluid ways, from a lens rooted in bhakti, gyan, karma, and raj yog, including her work as a founding board member of the North American Hindu Chaplains Association; Advisory Council member of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network; and in process to becoming a Mass Audubon certified naturalist. She has a Ph.D. in Strategic Management from the Wharton School and B.S. in Computational Biology and Business from Carnegie Mellon.
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Priya Amaresh
NAHCA Public Relations Co-Chair Raised in a spiritually rich home with Hindu traditions, religious discourse, and many visiting saints to her home, Priya has had the good fortune to be exposed to the beautiful teachings of Sanathana Dharma at an early age. Graduating from the University of Michigan with a master’s in education, Priya has been teaching K-10th graders in public school settings. After completing her Hatha yoga certification, she expanded her teaching towards a more spiritual curriculum that includes virtues and values extolled in our scriptures to students of all ages. In the practice of yoga, she began to appreciate how to shift our mental energy from a physical realm to a spiritual realm. Since 2014, she has made yoga a daily routine. It has been a platform upon which she stands to change her lifestyle to a more healthy one, and her mindset to a more positive one. Appointed in 2022, Priya is honored to serve as the Hindu chaplain at Duke University. Her experience has been extraordinary, as it offers a constant learning opportunity to delve into the vastness of Hindu religion and culture. Priya is excited to be part of the NAHCA board and continue to help spread the vision of pastoral care and spiritual growth among Hindu practitioners in different institutions of our society. Namaste.
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Rumni Saha
NAHCA Public Relations Co-Chair Rumni Saha serves as the Hindu Chaplain at Wellesley College. Rumni considers herself to be a proud Hindu, a Unitarian Universalist, and a humanist. She is an active member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Sharon, serving as a member of its Social Justice and Caring Committees. Rumni has been a writer, a newspaper columnist, and a long-time contributor to the Huffington Post. She is a frequent guest preacher at various Unitarian Churches throughout MA. Rumni received a Master of Education Degree (MEd) from Boston University following which she worked as a public school educator for 21 years. In 2020, she decided to give up a job that she loved to return to B.U. to attend seminary. In May of 2023, Rumni graduated from the B.U. School of Theology with a Master of Divinity Degree (MDiv) on the Interfaith Chaplaincy track and a Certificate in Religion and Conflict Transformation. While at B.U., she worked as the Director of the Chaplaincy Interest Group under her advisor and renowned theologian and trauma expert, Dr. Shelly Rambo, advising students on various chaplaincy-related topics and conducting/moderating panels on topics from self-care to Clinical Pastoral Education. Rumni was awarded the prestigious Deans' Chaplaincy Leadership Award and inducted into the Boston University Student Leadership Society “in grateful recognition of the many contributions to community life, dedication and outstanding service which have brought honor to the School of Theology.” She also successfully completed 1 unit of CPE at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston in 2021. Rumni considers India, her home country, as having given her roots and her adopted country, her wings. She is excited to see what comes next.
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