Dr. Sunanda Prabhu-Gaunkar obtained her Diplôme d'Ingénieur in Applied Mathematics and Micro-Nano-Opto Electronics from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris; PhD in Electrical Engineering with research in Quantum Transport of Two-dimensional Electron Gas Systems from Northwestern University, Evanston; and worked at Radius Product Development, Chicago. During her tenure as an undergraduate and graduate student, Sunanda gained experience in a host of diverse skills which include design techniques by contributing to building lab electronics, management skills via a certificate management program at Kellogg School of Management and language skills by completing her undergraduate course curriculum in advanced French and basic Japanese. At Radius, Sunanda interacted with a multidisciplinary team of designers and engineers, and contributed to several stages of end-to-end product development of various consumer products: engineering, research, concepts, exploration and ideation, prototyping, analytics and strategy.

With her work at STAGE lab, Sunanda brings together her experience in scientific research and design and applies these skills in creating compelling stories for film and theatre. In addition to basing the stories on scientists and scientific themes, Sunanda integrates scientific and product design methodologies in the process of content creation itself. She believes that understanding the intrinsic commonalities and differences in the two fields of art and science will lead to serendipitous new directions and foster stronger relationships between the two communities.