Former Senior Curator for South Asia, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, specialising in Indian textiles and paintings. Her textile books include Indian Embroidery; Indian ikat textiles; Chintz Indian textiles for the west and most recently The Fabric of India, which accompanied a major exhibition of the same name at the V&A.

It was her research into Odisha's ikat textiles that first took her to the region and she has returned several times since.