A queer, brown, digital arts researcher from Mumbai, India, Nayan Velaskar (MFA, University of Lethbridge) is a PhD. student in the Department of Design and Computation Arts and CISSC (the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture) at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. Velaskar's doctoral research considers the use of virtual space to archive borderland based queer and racialized ethnoecology. A migrant artist with a practice in digital arts, Velaskar works are largely collaborative, working with site-based perspectives to produce cultural media, games and digital applications. His research interests are informed by queer Chicanx and Blackfoot border scholarship, and have resulted in multiple collaborative publications and exhibitions with artists-scholars working within the two domains. Velaskar's collaboratively made, co-designed digital arts projects have been presented at Canadian institutions such as the Dr. Margaret Hess Gallery, at Fort-Whoop-up, at Western University. His co-authored written work has been published in the WSQ journal, tba: Journal of Art, Media, and Visual Culture, and in the Fordham Press.

Velaskar has also taught courses in new media theory and aesthetics: as a sessional instructor in the Department of New Media at Iniskim University of Lethbridge, and as a mentor with the Niitsitapi Pod in Treaty 7 territory. Projects made by his students have been displayed at events such as the Edmonton Game Con, Iniskim Future Students Day, VibeFest, etc. He works as a researcher with the Niitsitapi Pod (situated at Iniskim University of Lethbridge and led by Dr. Leroy Little Bear and Amethyst First Rider) of the Abundant Intelligences project, where he participates in knowledge mobilization projects centering the Blackfoot language.