Vellachi Ganesan

Principal Lighting Designer, Studio Jyothi

March 19 at 10:30 a.m. | Room 316 | Dark Sky Lighting - From Well-being to Being Future Ready

Vellachi Ganesan is a visionary designer, artist and educator who works primarily with the medium of light. A practicing lighting designer for over a decade, she is a seasoned practitioner of light, inspired by the poetic and metaphysical nature of light while also being well versed in its technical aspects. She has worked in Asia and the United States, making a wide range of work, from parks to hospitality, civic structures to residential.

Vellachi founded Studio Jyothi in 2025, with the intention to create meaningful lighting work that improves human and planetary health, informed by beauty, neuroaesthetics, circadian rhythm and dark sky principles. She believes strongly that light and darkness are intrinsic parts of us, which must be balanced for our well-being.

While artificial light at night enables cities to extend the activity into the night, the overuse of light has created a series of ecological, public health, astronomical and existential problems. With the disappearing dark due to light pollution, preserving our dark skies has never been more important. Vellachi has been conscious about contributing to the collective dark sky efforts through responsible lighting design work, lecturing in various design and sustainability programs globally, as well as serving to educate local communities.