Neha grew up in Troy, MI and is currently a PhD student in the Biology department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a child, she loved Bollywood films and always sang and danced along to every song. Wanting to learn more about Indian music, she started studying Hindustani Classical Music at the Center for North Indian Classical Music (now Gamak Academy) in 2001, eventually earning her diploma from the academy in 2008. She also started learning to play the flute in 2005 and enjoyed playing both Indian and Western songs.

Neha received her Bachelor’s in 2016 from the University of Michigan, where she majored in Pure Mathematics and Cell/Molecular Biology and minored in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture. Throughout undergrad, she continued her interest in music by playing the flute as a volunteer at Mott Children’s Hospital. She also joined Michigan Milaap, an all-female Bollywood-Fusion dance group. With this group, she performed at numerous cultural shows, benefit concerts, and arts festivals. Since she loved the idea of enabling positive change in her community with music and dance, she founded Promoting Healthcare through Dance (PHD): an organization that hosted benefit concerts to raise money for Indian healthcare-based charities and increased awareness of global healthcare/social justice issues.

After moving to Cambridge for graduate school at MIT, Neha found herself missing Bollywood dance. She and her friends recently formed MITwa, a grad Bollywood dance group at MIT. She also started taking BollyX classes on campus and realized that BollyX is a fantastic way to dance, have fun, and promote health, and she wants to share that with everyone!

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