PoonamSharma is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, India. She has over 13 years of experience in the developmental and Academic sectors. She has expertise in teaching Psychological Disorders, Positive Psychology, Multicultural Psychology, Community Psychology and Counselling.She is actively involved in student counselling at the university and counsels students with issues like gender identity, mental health concerns, trauma and abuse history. Sensitively handled the problems of the students belonging to the LGBTQ community. She is working with her students who have reported a history of child sexual abuse towards healing and positive growth. She has years of professional experience in HIV & AIDS counselling, capacity building and research. Apart from teaching at Amity University, Maharashtra, she has been associated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has developed modules for HIV/AIDS and TB Counselling. She has her PhD in the prevention of HIV among female sex workers. She has worked as a Social Development Expert with the State Urban Development Authority, where she supported drafting community participation laws, slum rehabilitation and understanding the readiness of slum dwellers towards low-cost housing rehabilitation schemes. During her initial career years, she worked with NGOs towards capacity building and empowering female sex workers, migrants, and truckers to preventSTIs and HIV infection. She provided Psycho-social support to the targeted group, including street children. Dr Poonam has been developing MOOCs on various essential topics; counselling skills for teachers, Child Safety and Tribal well-being under Open Education for Better World (OE4BW) UNESCO. She is actively involved in cross-cultural collaborations with State Evergreen College, USA, Wuyi University, China and Nha Trang University, Vietnam. Poonam Sharma, PhD (Psychology), akipoonam@gmail.com, 9702872251