Dhaya Lakshminarayanan

Dhaya Lakshminarayanan is an American comedian, performance artist, TV host, and storyteller. She has performed at venues such as San Francisco's Asian Art Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Siren Theater, San Francisco's Punchline Comedy Club and Cobb's Comedy Club, the Brava Theatre, Throckmorton Theatre, and others. She has also performed at comedy festivals such as SF Sketchfest 2015 and SF Sketchfest 2020; the Desi Comedy Fest, America's only South Asian comedy festival; and the Out of Bounds Comedy Festival. In 2019, Lakshminarayanan, Will Durst, and W. Kamau Bell appeared as guests on KQED in regard to the controversial proposed closure of the historic San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club. The same year, she regularly opened for Greg Proops at the Punchline.

Lakshminarayanan has appeared on radio shows such as NPR's Snap Judgment, on which she has appeared seven times, and been featured on CBS's Bay Sunday with Tracy Humphrey. She is the former host of High School Quiz Show, a public television program created at Boston’s WGBH, which premiered in March 2010. In 2016, KQED named her one of their 20 Women to Watch. In 2019, SFist named her as one of their 13 San Francisco Standup Comedians to Go See Now.

Early life Lakshminarayanan was raised in a Hindu household in a suburb Cleveland, Ohio Growing up, she spoke Tamil, learning English through Sesame Street and other PBS shows. in 1970 with $12; he had to spend time saving up in order to bring his wife, Hema—also from India—to the country. The couple settled in Illinois for a time, where they saw snow for the first time. In attempting to preserve their Indian cooking, they had to cobble together ingredients from diverse markets, finding eggplants at co-ops; cilantro, cumin, and plantains at Mexican groceries; and big bags of rice at Chinese markets.

Lakshminarayanan's father is a retired physics professor, while her mother is a working software engineer. Lakshminarayanan's brother holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale.

Education Lakshminarayanan holds two degrees from MIT,

Career

Business Lakshminarayanan is a former investment manager of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s investment firm, the Omidyar Network,

Early in her career, she was selected for the national 5 Funny Females and Pundits with Punchlines comedy tours. In 2010, she was one of three headliners—and the only woman—of the Mahatma Moses Comedy Tour. The same year, she became host of High School Quiz Show, a public television program created at Boston’s WGBH; she occupied the post for the program's inaugural year. The show earned a New England Emmy.

In 2011, Lakshminarayanan created a humor-meets-how-to web series with the San Francisco non-profit One Economy, called Everyday Tech. Inspired by the humor and tech themes, Lakshminarayanan created Nerd Nation, a live comedy show about nerd culture, with showings at venues such as the Alameda Pacific Pinball Museum.

In 2013, one of Lakshminarayanan's highlight performances was Brava's New Year's Eve Comedy Fiesta, which she co-headlined with Marga Gomez and Micia Mosely. Meanwhile, her storytelling was featured at the Kearny Street Workshop, the oldest Asian Pacific American multidisciplinary arts organization in the United States. She also performed at the 16th Annual SF Sketchfest.

In 2019, she performed at shows in the Bay Area such as Tindervention: Stand Up Comedy & Tinder Horror Stories at Cobb's Comedy Club; the Funny Immigrants Comedy Show at Lost Church; Cocktails & Comedy at The Armory Club; Cheaper Than Therapy at the Shelton Theater; Stand-up Comedy at Salesforce Park with Danny Dechi & Friends, and numerous other shows. She also spent time in New York, performing at shows and events such as the Nasty Women Unite Festival and Isn’t She Funny: A Standup Comedy Show with a Dude-Free Lineup. In Massachusetts, she played Cityside Comedy, McGreevy's, Beacon Hill Pub, and the Wilbur Theater. Additionally, she performed at events such as Portland's All Jane Comedy Festival and the Cambridge Science Festival. Also in 2019, Lakshminarayanan performed live for the MUNI Diaries podcast at San Francisco's Exploratorium and the comedy benefit MAKE IT STOP: A Night to Raise Money and Some Hell for Gun Reform Candidates, with all proceeds going to One Vote at a Time, a group of female filmmakers who were making free professional campaign videos for candidates in state elections who were committed to gun reform. She also opened for Greg Proops at San Francisco's Punchline Comedy on a recurring basis.

In 2020, Lakshminarayanan is slated to appear in Cambridge, Massachusetts for Cerebella: An Evening of Nerdy Jokes and the Stories Behind the Jokes, SF Sketchfest, and is a regular featured performer at the historic San Francisco Punchline Comedy Club. (KQED interview, 6:22

Awards and honors Liz Carpenter Political Humor Award (2016) First Place Winner of 2007 Battle of the Bay

Personal life Lakshminarayanan is a self-professed nerd and loves franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek. She also has a large Wonder Woman memorabilia collection. In 2016, she was living in Lower Pacific Heights, San Francisco.