Meet Jyoti.
Educator, writer, founder.

Children are clear-eyed and brilliant thinkers. My work takes that seriously.

I work at the intersection of childhood, culture, and learning. I bring research, arts education, media literacy, and participatory practices into programming, educational resources, public conversations, and frameworks that make cultural knowledge more visible. My practice moves across classrooms, cultural organizations, media, and community spaces, creating ways for children and grown-ups to notice, question, interpret, and make meaning together.

It began with skin color.

giving a presentation at TEDxSugarLand, standing beside a large screen displaying a book cover and a quote. The quote reads: "The politics of skin color run deep, inked on our souls—each time in our mother tongue." An audience is seated in front of her, and there is a patterned black and white backdrop on the wall.

In 2012, I founded The Colo(u)rism Project. Soon after, TEDxWomen invited me to speak about skin color, media and identity.

I’ve continued to challenge dominant narratives and explore the power of cultural work to advance social justice. Over time, my focus turned toward children—and their grown-ups.

Watch the talk that shaped my independent work.

An origin story

Turns out skin color questions from children are confounding for adults! So I wrote a book.

Read more
Wirecutter logo with black text on a white background.
A black-and-white sketch of a dog with pointed ears and a long snout, facing sideways.

Click here for Press and Inclusions.

After skin color came culture.

After taking the book on the road, hundreds of journal articles, and numerous candid conversations, bigger questions emerged.

My second book, Yesterday, Nexterday: An Activity Book about Culture, has an underlying curriculum helps adults learn how children interpret, repurpose, and participate in peer-settings. Through play, art, media literacy, and participatory practices, we can create space for their ideas to emerge—and listen to what they have to say.

Click on the video to watch my 3-minute pitch.

My superpower?
A few different ‘ways of seeing.’

Creative problem-solver

My background in advertising has trained me to look at problems from multiple angles, spot patterns, make unexpected connections. All while meeting audiences where they are.

Jaipur Literature Festival, 2018. In conversation with Puneeta Roy, with poets Jovan Mays and Melizarani T. Selva. Photo: Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images.

Transdisciplinary thinker

With MAs in Media Studies and Liberal Studies (Urban Education), and a BFA in Visual Communication, I connect ideas across disciplines that are often considered separate.

Women in the Heights: Shade, 2026. With my work Cut From the Shame Cloth at the Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance (NoMAA), New York.

Collaborative leader

I bring people, perspectives, and ideas together through curiosity, facilitation and shared inquiry—making room for rigorous thinking and collective action. And joy. Always Joy!

“Colorism in Our Communities,” 2017. Visiting speaker with the Restorative Justice High School Group, YES Prep Northbrook High School, Houston.

A collage of four screenshots from television and online broadcasts. The top left shows a woman with shoulder-length black hair wearing a red patterned top, speaking or reacting. The top right shows a partial view of a woman with black hair and a plant in the background. The bottom left is a TV news segment featuring woman and man hosts, with a headline about a spelling bee champion. The bottom right displays a child's drawing of a tree, a person, and a blue ball.

ViRTUAL KEYNOTE (2020)
Media literacy moment: critiquing a CNN video.
—DAYA HOUSTON

Children gathered around a park table listening to a woman giving a presentation, with colorful bunting flags hanging above, surrounded by trees and benches.

CHILDREN’S ART WORKSHOP (2020)
“Leaf Printing: A Hands-on Workshop about Skin Colors”
— BENNETT PARK

DREW BARRYMORE IGTV (2020)
Drew Barrymore looks at Different Differenter.
—DREW BARRYMORE IGTV

OPEN STUDIOS (2020)
Showing Blackface/Whiteface in the back and showing-off my book.
—CORNERSTONE STUDIOS

woman in a black and purple sari seated in a dimly lit tunnel at night

Photos: Emmanuel Abreu

I am an Indian-born, New York–based scholar-practitioner, writer, and educator exploring cultural visibility with children, youth, and their grown-ups.

My transdisciplinary practice spans education, media, and public engagement. I am the author of Different Differenter: An Activity Book about Skin Color (2019), and my work has taken me from schools and universities to TEDxWomen and the Jaipur Literature Festival in India. I have been featured in Bitch Media, The Washington Post, Time Out New York, and Radio Free Brooklyn, and have written for Romper.

I am the founder-creative director of The Colo(u)rism Project, an independent initiative that aims to bring cultural visibility to children, youth, women, and men of color. Before starting my independent practice, I worked in advertising and nonprofit management. I hold master’s degrees from The New School (Media Studies) and CUNY Graduate Center (Liberal Studies), and a BFA in Applied Art (Visual Communication) from College of Art, Delhi.

I live in Washington Heights, on the ancestral homelands of the Weckquaesgeek people and in the neighborhood widely known as Little Dominican Republic. I dabble in taking street photos, writing visual poetry, and designing crochet jewelry.

  • “…engaging primer on embracing differences that deftly combines a narrative with hands-on learning.”

    —Kirkus Reviews

  • "…address[es] a topic that, it turns out, is critical for kids to grasp before taking on racism: colorism.”

    —Kelly Glass for The New York Times Wirecutter

  • “I’m getting so much interest, I’m going to make another round. I’ve never done that before!”

    —SHELBY KRETZ, Founder, Little Justice Leaders Subscription Box

  • "shows us how to notice differences and what to do when someone speaks to you wrongly."

    SHULI DE LA FUENTE-LAU, Founder, Asian Lit for Kids, mom of a girl

  • “…provocative and sensitive … variety of developmentally and culturally appropriate experiences and explanations…”

    — Social Justice Books, A Teaching for Change Initiative

  • “…the content is profound and through the activities children can think and learn by themselves…"

    —FUMIKO MATSUYAMA, Mom of twin girls