Hamida Khatri is a PMP® certified gender-based violence expert, social justice advocate, researcher, artist, writer, curator, educator, community activist, and a tech nerd born and raised in Pakistan, and living and working in the United States (U.S.). She holds numerous awards for her work in the art and technology domain. She is an accomplished leader and learner with a Master of Fine Arts in Community Arts and Certificate of Teaching from the Maryland Institute College of Art (U.S.), Certificate in Humanistic Counseling from Counseling & Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (U.K.), Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture and Photography from the Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture (Pakistan), Bachelor and Master of Business Administration in Marketing from the Institute of Business Management (Pakistan), and Master of Science in Information Systems Engineering & Management from the Harrisburg University of Science & Technology (U.S.).

She started her journey as an advocate for gender justice from a very young age. Her passion led to the establishment of Creative Therapy Platform: A Voluntary Travel-Community Project focused on crafting healing spaces in underrepresented areas. Taking inspiration from Shaun McNiff’s (Professor and Dean at Lesley University, U.S.) representation of art as a medicine for the soul, her surrealist approach to gender issues negotiates the psychology of emotions. She has conducted 100+ workshops and sessions worldwide under the platform. Through these intentional projects, she helped transform spaces into healthy communal places for practicing meditative artmaking. One of the significant objectives of her professional practice is to deepen communities and its participants’ understanding of and comfort with the liberatory process through new and innovative creative methods.

Her professional success lies in establishing a social justice initiative, Project Kali: Celebration of Womanhood, a maker of safe space for battered women through the use of art activities and therapy interventions. The project secured numerous grants by The Pollination Project, France-Merrick Opportunity Fund, and Launch Artists in Baltimore Award. By establishing linking platforms, she has been able to curate exhibitions where her clients’ works have been displayed at Gallery Four, Motor House, Rousse Gallery, Meyerhoff Gallery, and the famous Baltimore Museum of Art. Her first book, Project Kali, was published in 2017 and has tremendously been supported by many academics, educators, and institutes. She has presented her work widely in Pakistan, India, and the U.S., including the 9th Annual Art & Design Education for Social Justice Symposium at the Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL), and the CMD-IT/ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference with a second-place award in the poster category.

Her practice as a social justice advocate and a gender-based violence expert embodies the spirit of feminist ideologies and seeks to document the uncharted memories of domesticated women within the confines of patriarchy. With her recent scientific publication at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Cloud Summit 2020, she is working on actualizing her life-long project in devising a gender-based violence detection tool by applying Artificial Intelligence + Machine Learning + Virtual Reality.

She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communication from the University of Texas at Dallas concurrently with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science majoring in Virtual Reality from Goldsmiths, University of London.