Nushelle de Silva

Nushelle de Silva is a Sri Lankan arts educator, currently reading for a PhD in architecture at MIT. She is honoured to be a Trail Ambassador, as its mission resonates deeply with her own personal experiences. Following painful encounters with racism during her childhood years in Sydney, she found theatre to be a source of healing and growth as a student at Ladies’ College. This inspired her to found Building Bridges in 2012, a Sri Lanka-based social enterprise that uses the arts to effect reconciliation and sustained dialogue between young people of diverse ethnic and religious groups. Moreover, her own younger brother survived a long battle against leukemia as a child, and she is thrilled that Trail is empowering countless others to do the same.

She was recently named a Queen’s Young Leader for her work, and appeared on the inaugural Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list for social entrepreneurship. She holds degrees in architectural history from Princeton and MIT, and her academic research interrogates identity politics in design. In all her endeavors, she is committed to fostering creative, critical-thinking, collaborative, and compassionate communities.