Roshini Thinakaran

Roshini Thinakaran is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer (named in 2007), TED Global Fellow, Journalist, Photographer, Researcher, Humanitarian, and Anthropologist (Cultural). She also is a documentary filmmaker from Sri Lanka and the United States. Her fields of study include: women, filmmakers, and war.

Biography Thinakaran was born in Sri Lanka and moved to the United States at age seven. Thinakaran attended George Mason University

Work Thinakaran's first short film was made about Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia.

Much of her work has focused on researching and profiling the lives of women living in post-conflict zones including Iraq, Liberia, Lebanon and Afghanistan. She established Women at the Forefront in 2005, a multimedia project that examines war through the eyes of women. The goal of her project was to raise money and awareness for women in war zones and to support schools once the fighting ended. Thinakaran's coverage and support of women living in war zones was inspired by the time she lived in Iraq for 14 months, watching as women endured the conditions of war. In her project, the countries of Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and possibly Liberia, will be featured.

Her documentary, What Was Promised (2008), focused on the US-led initiative to integrate Iraqi women into the Iraqi Security Forces. It premiered at the National Geographic All Roads Film Project.