Kati Yugala 13.7563° N, 100.5018° E
Kati at a lecture podium in front of a large screen reading Made Ready in Mahanak: workshops for local vendors, Thailand.
Presenting Made Ready in Mahanak at the Global Citizens Initiative.
Portrait of Kati in a dark blazer.

Napapim (Kati) Yugala

Prospective Urban Studies major

Student in Bangkok interested in cities, art, and the stories behind everyday places.

I like looking closely at things people usually pass by: an old shop, a neighborhood smell, a family object, or a street with a history that is slowly disappearing.

That curiosity has led me into community projects, urban research, and art.

katiyugala@gmail.comLinkedIn

Projects

Mahanak Ally

FounderKhlong Mahanak, Bangkok13.7540° N, 100.5129° E

I started Mahanak Ally in a neighborhood I had walked through many times but barely knew. I now work with local children and residents to collect stories from the area and turn them into maps, photographs, artworks, and exhibitions.

One program has students walk through Mahanak’s alleys and canals, interview older residents, photograph daily life, and design their own symbols for places that matter to them. Their work became the first Mahanak Community Map and an exhibition at Asvin.

100+
children in two 12-week art, history, and journalism curricula
2
exhibitions curated, with 1,000+ visitors
1st
neighborhood guidebook for Mahanak, published

Find out more about Mahanak Ally at mahanakally.orgFollow @mahanakally on Instagram

Kati and the Mahanak Ally team smiling under a market tent with the Mahanak Ally banner.
The Mahanak Ally team.

Community Mapping Project

Participatory mapping with students from Bamrung Islam SchoolBangkok Design Week 2026

Around 60 students from Bamrung Islam School spent 12 weeks learning Mahanak outside the classroom. They spoke with residents, made photo essays, learned basic mapmaking, and eventually designed their own visual language for the neighborhood.

I curated their work into an exhibition selected for Bangkok Design Week 2026, which drew more than 1,000 visitors, and published a neighborhood guidebook and a curriculum book so others can run the same workshops. Using residents’ interviews, oral histories, traditions, businesses, and hidden landmarks, I then created Mahanak’s first community-designed narrative map as my EPQ artifact, published in print and online.

60
students, trained as young journalists
12
weeks outside the classroom
1,000+
visitors at Bangkok Design Week 2026

Click here to read my EPQ on the narrative map (PDF)

Figure-ground map of the Mahanak neighborhood drawn from OpenStreetMap data, with Khlong Mahanak, Mahanak Mosque, and Mahanak Cemetery labeled.
Mahanak as open map data records it: streets, buildings, canals.
Mahanak in a Map: the illustrated narrative map with numbered places, beside lists of cafés and restaurants, attractions, and hidden gems.
Mahanak as its residents described it: Mahanak in a Map.
Kati's hand-painted watercolor map of Mahanak, with streets, trees, a canal boat, and icons for coffee, food stalls, a school, and the cemetery.
Mahanak Ally, community-collaborative tourism brochure.
Painted map icons of trees, buildings, and food laid out on a large white sheet.
The leaflet design: an Explore Mahanak cover, a History with Locals panel with residents' quotes, and panels on events and traditions.
The printed leaflet standing open on a desk, showing the Mahanak in a Map spread.
The printed leaflet standing open, showing the Events, Traditions, History with Locals, and Explore Mahanak panels.
Close-up of the leaflet's lists of cafés and restaurants, attractions, and hidden gems not on Google Maps.
The leaflet cover, titled Explore Mahanak, with a night photo of a tuk-tuk at a market.

Islamic Art Classroom

Curriculum designer and teacherMahanak Mosque community

Art became my way in. I studied Islamic art, designed a curriculum for Al-Islamiyah School, and invited Muslim artists to teach Tawhid, geometric patterns, arabesques, and calligraphy.

See the full curriculum on mahanakally.org

  1. Week 1Introduction
  2. Week 2Tawhid and geometry
  3. Week 3Arabesque floral patterns
  4. Week 4Calligraphy
  5. Week 5Mosaic tiles
  6. Week 6Good Deeds Journal
  7. Weeks 7–8Development and compilation
A guest artist presenting to children seated on the floor, with a slide on a screen behind him.
A guest artist introduces Islamic art.
Children working on the floor of a mosque, in front of the minbar.
Class inside the mosque.
A teacher gesturing beside a screen as children watch.
Learning about Tawhid and geometry.
Circular artworks woven from colored thread on paper plates.
Geometry in thread.
Six geometric tile drawings, colored in reds, blues, and greens.
Geometric tile designs.
Brightly painted floral arabesque artworks laid out on the floor.
Arabesque floral patterns.
Cut-out star and cross tile shapes in many colors, arranged together on a red rug.
Mosaic tiles, assembled into one piece.
A hand holding a card with a geometric pattern and Arabic calligraphy.
Calligraphy and pattern on one card.
Detail map of Mahanak Cemetery, a hatched block south of Khlong Mahanak, with Mahanak Mosque at its northeast corner beside the canal junction.

The Kubor Project

Project Lead, participatory design and fundraisingMahanak Cemetery, Bangkok13.7524° N, 100.5153° E

The project started with a question about one of Mahanak’s largest open spaces: its Islamic cemetery. Instead of beginning with a finished design, I have been working with the people who use and care about the space to understand what could change and what should remain untouched.

The project is now being developed with architects and university partners, with community input shaping the design.

1.6
acres of Islamic cemetery
200
residents mapping needs and co-designing
$10K
secured through proposals for upkeep and green space

Find out more at mahanakally.org

Beyond the Village

Co-Founder and CEOChiang Mai and Northern Thailand18.7883° N, 98.9853° E

Beyond the Village focuses on making clean air practical for people who cannot simply buy an expensive purifier. Our DIY systems use affordable filters and fans, and some are adapted into positive-pressure rooms that keep polluted outside air from leaking back in.

A part of the project I especially value is teaching people to build the systems themselves. We have run workshops in schools and correctional institutions, so the purifier becomes something people understand and can reproduce rather than something we simply leave behind.

I co-founded BTV with my sister in 2022 and now lead operations, fundraising, and training. I am expanding it beyond Northern Thailand through Rajabhat universities and Clean Air Ambassadors, and adapting our grid-dependent system to solar power.

150+
units deployed
20,000+
people protected
$30
per DIY purifier, built in 30 minutes

“Our mission is to make sure that everyone can breathe safely, no matter where they are.”

Find out more about Beyond the Village at beyondthevillage.coFollow @beyond.the.village on Instagram

Kati and teammates presenting at a table of purifier parts.
Explaining how the purifier is built, Chiang Mai Women’s Correctional Institution.
A presenter speaking to rows of women in blue uniforms, with purifier units on a table.
A hundred participants at the women’s institution workshop.
An official speaking into a microphone to a seated audience at the start of a workshop.
Opening the workshop with the institution’s staff.
A row of DIY purifiers installed along the windows of a school corridor.
Purifiers installed along a corridor at Thepbodin School.
A DIY purifier with an aluminum duct, mounted on a yellow stand by a window.
A finished unit with its duct, Thepbodin School.
A large audience in blue uniforms facing a stage and screen at Chiang Mai Central Prison.
Workshop at Chiang Mai Central Prison.
A team member showing a purifier to the audience at the prison workshop.
Showing the parts before assembly.
Workshop participants standing and assembling purifiers in a hall.
Participants assembling their own purifiers.

Most maps tell you what a city looks like. This project asks what happens if you map what it smells like.

Bangkok Smellscapes

Smellscape Researcher, Silpakorn University Faculty of ArchitectureWith Prof. Supitcha TovivichFour Bangkok districts

I joined smellwalks across Bangkok, recording scents from markets, streets, temples, food stalls, waterways, and other everyday spaces. I then worked on ways to translate those observations into smell maps and physical scent objects, so the research could be experienced rather than only read.

Through Nosyscape, I explore whether disappearing neighborhood scents can function as an urban archive. I translated our findings into scent maps and Nosyscape candles, and led public walks on smell and urban change.

Research

  1. Urban historyAccepted by Damrong Journal, Silpakorn University

    Aswin Studio Co., Ltd. and the Transformation of the Mahanak–Nang Loeng Entertainment District from the 1950s to the 1990s

    Napapim Yugala, sole author. Written in Thai.

    Curious why my grandfather chose Mahanak for his film studio, I traced 200 years of history, from King Rama I’s canal and Sak Wa poetry to migrant performing traditions, Lakhon theater, and Thai cinema. His choice was no accident: generations of artists had made Mahanak an entertainment hub.

    Click here to read the full paper (PDF, in Thai)

  2. Environmental economics15th International Conference on Asian Economic Development, Chiang Mai University, 2026

    Impact of the Air Pollution Crisis (PM 2.5) in Chiang Mai Province on the Residency Decisions and Temporary Fly-Out Migration Behavior of Digital Nomads and Long-Stay Tourists

    Napapim Yugala, Chayanon Sawatdeenaruna, Tanapol Rattanasamakarn, and Pacharaporn Arkornsakul. Presented orally; published in the conference proceedings, pp. 164–181.

    Where migration data were missing, I built Google Trends proxies and modeled 156 weeks with a vector autoregression to test how PM2.5 shifts digital-nomad migration and economic leakage from Chiang Mai.

    Click here to read the full paper (PDF)

  3. Participatory cartographyExtended Project Qualification (Artifact)

    Designing a Participatory Narrative Map to Document and Communicate the Cultural Identity of the Mahanak Community, Bangkok

    Napapim Yugala.

    A leaflet map that combines illustration with what I learned from interviews with elders and classes with students in Mahanak, developed through research, hand painting, interviews, design, and printing.

    Click here to read the full EPQ (PDF)

Fellowships

Three Dot Dash poster with a duotone portrait of Kati under the words Global Teen Leader 2026, Napapim Yugala.
Three Dot Dash profile card: co-founder of Beyond the Village, delivering low-cost PM2.5 air purification systems to tribal communities affected by wildfire smoke in Northern Thailand.
Three Dot Dash card quoting Kati on her goals: making sure everyone can breathe safely, with locally sourced materials and free instructions.
Three Dot Dash card quoting Kati on her favorite place in nature, the forests near Doi Chiang Dao in Chiang Mai.
Poster for the Just Peace Summit, London 2026, by Three Dot Dash.

Three Dot Dash Global Teen Leader

We Are Family Foundation, 2026Summit in London, 51.5072° N, 0.1276° W

  • 1 of 30 worldwide
  • <2% acceptance rate
  • Fully funded London climate fellowship

Three Dot Dash brings together teenage founders who are already working on solutions to basic human needs, then pairs each student with a mentor for a year.

I joined the 2026 cohort through Beyond the Village. During the London summit, I met people working in climate policy, communications, technology, and social enterprise, and came back with ideas for the next stage of BTV, including solar-powered systems.

See my Global Teen Leader profile

Global Citizens Initiative Fellow

Global Citizens Initiative, 2026Project: Made Ready in Mahanak

  • 1 of 33 fellows worldwide
  • <10% acceptance rate
  • 10-month fellowship

I joined GCI while developing Mahanak Ally. The fellowship gave me a space to test the project with students from different countries and think more carefully about how a local initiative can continue after its founder steps away.

My fellowship project, Made Ready in Mahanak, starts from the idea that storytelling alone cannot sustain revitalization. I interviewed vendors about seasonal demand and food-safety challenges, and I am organizing hygiene, inventory, and customer-service training for local businesses.

Find out more about the GCI Fellowship

Kati speaking at a lectern during her presentation, with the audience to the left.
Presenting Made Ready in Mahanak.
Kati seated beside a projected slide showing a crowded produce market and the note that over 50 percent of vendors go out of business.
Why vendors struggle: over half go out of business.
View from the back of a lecture hall, with the audience in silhouette and Kati speaking at the front.
Fellows and mentors in the audience.

Leadership and service

Mandela House Captain

Shrewsbury International School

  • 259 students led
  • Years 7–13

House Captain is probably the place where I do the most completely random things in one week. I might be helping prepare a sports event, rehearsing House Music, or writing a script for a House Film.

What I like most is creating things that give hundreds of students a reason to feel part of the same group, even when they have very different interests. I led our 259 students through House Music and sports competitions, and wrote and directed our House FilmFest entry.

Follow Mandela House on Instagram, @mandelafoxes

Four house leaders in orange shirts and face paint sitting on a sofa on stage with microphones.
House leaders on stage at House Music.
Students in orange house shirts singing on stage during House Music.
Mandela singers at House Music.
A theater full of students in orange shirts and face paint cheering for the camera.
First house assembly!
Two students in orange shirts playing bass and electric guitar on stage.
House Music.
Mandela House team celebrating with a trophy on the running track under an inflatable start arch.
Celebrating a win on sports day.
Mandela House students posing in a sports hall holding fans printed with faces.
Supporters in the sports hall.
Younger Mandela House students lifting a trophy in the school sports hall.
Our youngest members with their trophy.

Community Engagement Prefect

Shrewsbury International School

  • 8 charity partners

My role is mostly about getting people to actually participate. I work between student groups and community partners, helping turn an idea for a fundraiser or volunteer project into something students can join.

Habitat for Humanity

Co-Leader

  • 67 students on build trips
  • About $3,000 raised

One of the harder parts of leading Habitat was not the building trips. It was getting students to sign up for them.

When interest dropped, I stopped relying only on announcements and started explaining what we had actually seen and done on previous trips. It made the club feel less like another school service requirement and more connected to the families we were working with.

Follow our Habitat club on Instagram, @shr_habitat

Students with shovels digging a foundation trench at a Habitat for Humanity build site.
Digging foundations.
The Habitat for Humanity volunteer group standing together at the build site under a blue sky.
The whole team at the build site.
Volunteers cheering beside a freshly mixed tub of cement at the end of a build day.
The end of a build day.

Art and curation

Art portfolio

Drawing, painting, and mixed mediaCharcoal portraiture

I mostly draw people and places I know. Some pieces begin with family, like my charcoal portrait of my dad; others start with architectural details I notice around Bangkok.

  • Shrewsbury Art Scholar, 1 of 8 students
  • RISD Pre-College, all A grades

Selected artwork, Women in Art, Las Laguna Art Gallery, 2026

Charcoal portrait of a bald man with a mustache, looking straight ahead.
New Year’s. Charcoal on Paper, 21x28 inches.
Charcoal still life of sneakers resting on folded fabric and lace.
Things I Carry. Charcoal on Paper, 18x24 inches.
Painting of a young woman in a draped Thai dress, seen over her shoulder, against a collaged background.
Between Traditions. Mixed Media on Canvas, 18x24 inches.
Charcoal drawing of a young girl resting her head against a baby.
The Beginning of Us. Charcoal on Paper, 18x24 inches; shown at Las Laguna Art Gallery.
Arched piece combining a painted portrait of a woman in traditional dress with fabric, paper, and found objects, shown in full and in detail.
Interconnected Cultures. Acrylics and Oils on Cardboard, 12x19 inches.
Circular painting of the Thai dessert thap thim krob in bowls on a blue-and-white patterned surface, seen from above.
Thap Thim Krob. Oil on Canvas, 15x15 inches.
Photos of a lit sculpture shaped like a Thai temple, casting patterned light and colored shadows.
Hidden Light. Mixed Media Sculpture, Dimensions Variable.
Charcoal drawing of an ornate frame with cherubs, its center left empty.
Fractured Perfection. Charcoal on Paper, 18x24 inches.
Five small drawings of Thai temple details on green, pink, red, yellow, and purple toned paper, side by side.
Bencha. Marker and Colored Pencil on Toned Paper, 4x6 inches.
Painting of a Thai classical dancer in a tall crown among frangipani flowers, with a temple behind her.
Living Mural. Oil on Canvas, 12x16 inches.
Photos of white cut-out building facades made from beermat board, standing on a printed map and lit from within.
Traces. Beermat Paper Board, Printed Map, LED Lights.

  1. 1970: New Anatomy of Mahori

    Researcher and CuratorWith National Artist Kru Tuen Pattayakul

    I first found the miniature Ranat Ek, Khim, and Jakhe while researching my grandfather. The instruments had been shrunk but were still playable.

    I later traced their history with Kru Tuen Pattayakul and Phattayakul Thai Music and Drama School, then helped bring the instruments and their story together again in a playable exhibition.

  2. Wish You Were Here: Bangkok’s Playlists

    Co-Curator, Asvin Art and Cultural Space

    • 8-week music-history series
    • 300 tickets sold

    This exhibition started from the idea that you can hear a city’s history as much as you can see it.

    The program moved through different periods of Bangkok through music and live events, from lullabies to jazz, funk, and disco. My role involved researching the historical context, working with contributors such as DJs and historians, and helping turn that material into something visitors could actually experience.

  3. Wonderfruit

    Creative Assistant to Wit PimkanchanapongBaan Bardo outdoor stage, 2025–26

    I assisted the artist Wit Pimkanchanapong on the Baan Bardo outdoor stage at Wonderfruit. It showed me the less visible side of exhibiting work, especially installation and how a piece changes once it is placed in a public setting.

    See Baan Bardo on the Wonderfruit website

    Looking up through Baan Bardo's tall steel frame and hanging panels against the sky.
    Looking up through the steel frame. Photo: Wonderfruit
    Baan Bardo by day, with people sitting on mats beneath the open steel structure.
    A daytime session under the structure. Photo: Wonderfruit
    Baan Bardo at night, with musicians playing to a crowd inside the lit frame.
    A night performance inside the frame. Photo: Wonderfruit
    The Baan Bardo stage glowing red at night, with its panels raised.
    The stage at night, panels raised. Photo: Wonderfruit
    A performer under hanging round lanterns, with an audience seated on the floor.
    A ritual performance under lanterns. Photo: Wonderfruit
    A dancer in a winged costume performing beneath the stage's frame.
    A dancer on the Baan Bardo stage. Photo: Wonderfruit

  4. Archaeological fieldwork at Wat Chakrawat

    Fine Arts Department Archaeological Volunteer2025–2026Wat Chakrawat, Bangkok

    Excavated and documented artifacts, stratigraphy, and site context at Wat Chakrawat, supporting historical analysis of an active Bangkok temple.

    A volunteer in an orange safety vest handing a tool to another volunteer working in an excavation pit.
    Excavating at Wat Chakrawat.
    A volunteer in an orange safety vest walking past piles of excavated bricks at the dig site.
    Volunteers in orange vests sitting beside buckets, washing excavated finds.
    Volunteers in orange vests and hard hats working beside a rock garden in the temple grounds.
    A volunteer in a hard hat watching another work inside a deep excavation pit.
    A volunteer in an orange vest standing beneath the ornate gate of Wat Chakrawat.
    A clipboard holding an old aerial photograph of the temple grounds.
    A clipboard holding a site plan drawing of the temple.

Honors

YearHonorResult
2026Three Dot Dash Global Teen Leader1 of 30 worldwide, <2% acceptance rateProfile
2026John Locke Global Essay PrizeCommendation, International RelationsCertificate (PDF)
2026Sidgwick Prize, CambridgeShortlist, Art HistoryCertificate (PDF)
2026British Physics OlympiadSilver
2026Pure and Applied Chemistry International ConferenceGold
2026Las Laguna Art Gallery, Women in ArtSelected artwork
2023–26Team ShrewsburyRecognized for competing in Varsity swimming and as a leader and role model.Shrewsbury International School
2025INVENTCOR / WGCGold Medal
2025Nanotechnology ThailandSilver
2025Honorary Academic ScholarShrewsbury International School
2024Shrewsbury Art Scholar1 of 8 students
2024Duke of Edinburgh’s International AwardBronze
World Mathematics ChampionshipsFinals qualifier, Australia and Imperial College London
School Sports Excellence AwardFour-time recipient

Swimming

I have been swimming for more than ten years, and backstroke is still the event I feel most comfortable in. Unlike most of my projects, where I am constantly talking to people and starting new things, swimming is repetitive. That is partly why I like it. Progress comes down to tiny changes that are almost invisible from outside.

  • Thai Nationals Qualifier
  • Four-time Sports Excellence Award

50m and 100m backstrokeElite Athlete TeamCoached under-9 swimmers for 15 weeks

Two swimmers racing backstroke in neighboring lanes.
Racing backstroke.
Kati mid-stroke swimming backstroke, one arm reaching overhead.
Mid-stroke.
An outdoor competition pool with swimmers on the starting blocks under a clear blue sky.
An outdoor meet.

Contact

katiyugala@gmail.com