Congratulations to the 2024 inductee into the Springfield High School Hall of Fame! (Click here to see photos)
Class of 1988’s Indira S. Somani, Ph.D. is an Independent Documentary Filmmaker. After a 26-year- career as a television newscast producer and broadcast journalism professor, Somani moved to LA and enrolled in the MFA in Directing/Production, Documentary film program at UCLA. Somani has directed and produced Life on the Ganges (2017), a10-minute documentary directed, produced and filmed in Varanasi, India, during Dev Diwali, when people from all over India travel there to bathe in the Ganges River. The film screened in film festivals in the U.S., India and Europe and won Best Short Documentary at the Berlin Independent Film Festival, and the Cannes Short Film Festival. Another film Somani directed, produced and wrote was. Crossing Lines (2007), a 30-minute personal essay documentary about her struggle to stay connected to India after the loss of her father and to maintain and preserve her Indian cultural identity. The film won numerous awards, screened in film festivals nationally and internationally, aired on PBS affiliates through NETA from 2008- 2011, and has been used by more than 100 universities as a tool to teach intercultural communication in the classroom. Both films are in distribution through New Day films.
While teaching at Howard University's School of Communications from 2012-2021, Somani's research shifted to study Black Broadcast Journalists and how race had an impact on their success in the newsroom. She has been published in several academic journals and has also co-authored two book chapters. Somani's academic career was preceded by 10 years as a television news producer, most notably with CNBC and WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington D.C. Somani has also been a leader of the South Asian Journalists Association (SAJA), where she has also won several "Outstanding" awards for her coverage of South Asians in North America. Prior to teaching at Howard, Somani taught journalism at Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA) and American University's School of Communication (Washington, DC).American University’s School of Communication (Washington, DC). Somani earned her Master’s in Journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University in 1993, and her Ph.D. from the Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park in 2008.