Nisha Mary Poulose is the Executive Director of Regenerative Rising. She is an award-winning architect and regional planner, whose career at the confluence of human habitat, planning, and the environment now spans 14 years and 3 countries. Her regenerative focus has been the guiding force behind her work, as is the deep bond she shares with nature and the indigenous. As Executive Director of Regenerative Rising, she looks forward to weaving complexity through interdisciplinary collaboration and holistic cocreation.
Since 2018, she has been running Woven Design Collaborative- A multi-disciplinary spatial planning organization she founded in India, which works to solve grass root issues with a wholesystems approach to bridging silos. She is also a co-convener for the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), whom she supports with strategic visions and action plans for integrated regional development to preserve human and natural heritage, with regenerative livelihoods and vernacular wisdom at the center.
In 2015 she won an award from the Prime Minister of India for her ideas on how Smart Cities in India can solve critical problems. She previously worked with the Government of Karnataka to integrate sustainable mobility into cities. She holds many other volunteer positions in the climate action and community development space and strongly believes that collective action is the need of the hour. Nisha did her architecture in India before being selected for the Erasmus Mundus Program in Europe where she gained two advanced degrees: MSc. International Cooperation in Urban Development and MSc. Urbanism, Habitat and International Cooperation.
She grew up in Kottayam, a small town in Kerala- the South-Western coastal State in India known for its natural and cultural heritage and is abundant in tropical bio-diversity. Her relationship with nature is one that she cultivated in her childhood and continues to inform her thoughts and actions. She relaxes by hiking, solving jigsaw puzzles, or sneaking away with her cat Cleo to finish a book.