"As I seek to be the first Indian American to be elected at the center of the modern world, New York City, I am glad that an organization like USINPAC exists to support us. The fight is uphill but we will succeed. "

Ashok Gargeya Chandra currently works at Bloomberg LLP and is running for the fourth council district in Manhattan. As a councilman, Ashok hopes to help to make New York City an affordable place to live and to set up a business. During law school, Ashok served as the managing editor of the Fordham Intellectual Property Media & Entertainment Law Journal. During his tenure as managing editor, he authored the note, Crisis of Indefinite Consequence: How the Derivative Works Exception and the Lanham Act Undercut the Remunerative Value of Termination of Transfers, 16 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 241 (2005). After law school, Ashok worked in private practice for two years as an intellectual property attorney and a telecommunications attorney.

Ashok attended the South Texas High School for Health Professions and subsequently attended to the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and a Bachelor of the Arts in English. While at the University of Texas, Ashok worked at the university newspaper, The Daily Texan, and concurrently was a teacher’s assistant in Biochemistry II as well as Organic Chemistry. Ashok moved to New York City in 2003 to attend Fordham University School of Law.

Ashok’s father came to New York City from Bangalore in 1972. In New York, he met his future wife, Mae Penalver Chandra and they moved to Texas in 1977. Ashok was born on June 26, 1979, in Weslaco, TX, where his father began his medical practice in a largely Indian medical community.