Postdoctoral Fellow Lakshmi Pradeep (Department "Artifacts, Action, Knowledge”) has been awarded a 2025–26 Collaborative Archival Grant by the Program for the Archiving of Science and Technology (PAST). The grant amounts to 700,000 Indian rupees and is jointly awarded to the India-based environmental sustainability and social justice NGO Dakshin Foundation.

Lakshmi will be leading the project “Archiving Marine and Indigenous Sciences of the Lakshadweep Islands” together with Dakshin Foundation. The project aims to preserve and digitize historical sources such as manuscripts, printed materials, artifacts, and oral histories related to maritime knowledge, local ecological knowledge, marine biology and fisheries sciences of the Lakshadweep Islands of India.

The PAST program is organized by the Archives at National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in India and is supported by the charitable foundation Arcadia. It aims to “protect nature, preserve cultural heritage and promote open access to knowledge” and support documentation of under-represented and marginalized histories of science and technology in India.