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Nirva is an attorney with a background in science, communications, and animal policy. She brings decades of experience inspiring positive change for animals as an animal rights campaigner, non-profit board member, and executive producer of documentaries such as Meat Me Halfway, The End of Medicine, and The Game Changers–one of the most watched documentaries on Netflix. Nirva also spent the past five years serving on the board of Farm Sanctuary, most recently as its Chair.

Prior to becoming Executive Director, Nirva was a Global Policy Fellow with the ALPP focusing on live animal markets and animal legal education in India. She also provided critical research for Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic, where she also worked with students on projects and cases.  She has been Involved in the Clinic’s ongoing lawsuit against the National Park Service over the dying Tule Elk population at Point Reyes National Seashore, and efforts to eliminate public funding for cruel and unnecessary animal experimentation.

Nirva has served on the boards of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA), the International Anti-Poaching Foundation, the Fur Free Coalition, and the International Vegan Film Festival, in addition to Farm Sanctuary. She grew up in Ashland, Massachusetts, and then worked in animal advocacy in Mumbai, India for close to a decade. Since returning to the U.S., Nirva has led several successful animal advocacy campaigns, including banning the sale of fur in the towns of Lexington and her current home of Weston, MA.

A member of the Massachusetts Bar Association and the United States Patent and Trademark Organization, Nirva holds a J.D. from The New England School of Law, an M.S. in Animals and Public Policy from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, and a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University. She is a Jain American who practices the philosophy of ahimsa, which espouses nonviolence to all living creatures.