Scholars@Duke

Uday Mark Balasundaram (he/his/him) is an indigenous-cosmopolitan residing in Durham, North Carolina with his wife, Sujatha, a visual artist-theologian, and two teenage daughters. He is a Special Programs Instructor at Duke Divinity where he has developed and taught courses in the Liturgical Studies, Spiritual Formation, and Advanced Course of Study (ACOS) programs.

Uday was born in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, in South India and brought up amid the sociocultural tensions and political turmoil of 1970-80s New Delhi. He went to a Catholic school and attended a Methodist Church. His appreciation for Indian and Western classical music began at home. Uday learned guitar from a young age and graduated with a certificate in Guitar Performance from the Musicians Institute, Los Angeles. Uday worked in public media for about 10 years, composing music for advertising, theater, contemporary dance, and as a sessions guitarist with A. R. Rahman in the Bollywood film music industry.

Uday received a Master of Divinity and PHD (Intercultural Studies) from Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, KY and has served in several pastoral and worship leadership roles in diverse churches in the US and in India. He is an Arts Catalyst with the Lausanne Movement, a teaching adjunct with the Center for Excellence in World Arts (CEWA) at Dallas International University and has previously taught courses at Fuller Theological Seminary (Houston), Houston Graduate School of Theology, and SAIACS, Bangalore. Uday’s current research and writing are in creative theology, innovation, and the arts. He is the author of Creativity and Captivity: Exploring the Process of Creativity Amongst Indigenous Cosmopolitans (ICMs) for Mission (2021), Series No. 51 American Society of Missiology. Uday is a creativity consultant and serves on the board of the Association of Professors of Mission and on the Board of Samadhan, New Delhi, an NGO serving persons with intellectual disability and impacted by poverty.