Shonairra Aradhya

About

I am sixteen.
Most of this comes back
to one question.

What actually helps adolescents grow up well. Not what reassures the adults asking.

Portrait of Shonairra Aradhya.

I am an IB student at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, and I am from Bengaluru. So far my answers to that question look like three things. A first author qualitative study with ICMR and NIMHANS on what a parent’s phone feels like from the other side of the room. A foundation, Sva, that turns psychology into toolkits and circles a school can run without me. And four years as a trained Well-being Ambassador, which is mostly four years of learning to listen without immediately being useful.

The interest was personal well before it was academic. I have a sister ten years younger. Watching how fast a small person’s behaviour bends to whatever is around her made cognitive and social psychology impossible to walk past.

I also grew up around educators. My grandfather is a Padma Shri decorated educationist, and he set the family’s bar for what a life of service is supposed to look like.

Next is a psychology degree. After that, social entrepreneurship in mental wellness and education.

Further afield

Away from a desk.

  • KenyaTwo school field trips. Lived with the Maasai, and took hygiene supplies and stationery to local schools.
  • Altitude and depthEverest Base Camp on foot. PADI Junior Open Water Diver. Learned free diving off Okinawa, alongside whales.
  • Cold and fast32 km of white water from Switzerland into France. Built an igloo and slept the night in it.
KenyaTwo school field trips, living with the Maasai.
UnderwaterPADI Junior Open Water Diver, two frames from the same dive.
Photo Everest Base Camp On the trail or at the camp itself. The sign, if you have it.
Photo The white water 32 km of it and no photograph. Boat, river, kit, anyone.
Photo The igloo Built it and slept in it. This is the one everyone will stop at.

Todo Three of five landed. Still wanted: Everest Base Camp, on the trail or at the camp, and the igloo. Note that both underwater shots are scuba rather than free diving, so they illustrate the PADI line and not the Okinawa one; confirm where they were taken and I will caption them properly. A second Kenya photograph is held back, see NEEDED.md.

Recognition

Awards.

  • Le RoseyHighest Academic Achievement, Classes 4, 3 and 2. Honour, Class 1.
  • Duke of EdinburghBronze achieved. Gold in progress.
  • ABRSM · 2026Grade 4, Voice.
IMD Leadership Academy
Duke of Edinburgh, Bronze
Le Rosey and EFG Finance Day
PADI Junior Open Water Diver

Click any certificate to enlarge it.

Todo Two things on these. The IMD certificate says Leadership Academy Programme, 2024 to 2025, but the list above says 2025/26 and “Foundations of entrepreneurship”. Confirm whether those are the same thing or two separate programmes, and I will correct whichever is wrong. Second, the PADI certification number has been painted out of the image file because it is a lookup key and she is sixteen; the instructor’s signature is still legible, so say the word if that should go too. Page 2 of the IMD PDF is a cohort group photograph of about thirty identifiable people and is not published.

Todo Note 6. “The particulars” has been removed and this space is held for the replacement copy. The six rows that were there, in case any of them are worth keeping: Education, Languages, Certifications, Founder, Research, Based.
Contact

Say hello.

Schools, researchers, and anyone doing a version of this themselves.

shonairra@gmail.com