Frater, Judy, Ashoka Fellow, conceived and founded the Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya, the first design school for traditional artisans of crafts and textiles.

Since 1993 when she set up the Kala Raksha Trust in Bhuj, Kutch she has coordinated comprehensive development projects, including the establishment of the local museum.

Judy Frater has designed and curated numerous exhibitions, and traveling shows at venues including The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Glasgow School of Art, among others. She has collected and documented textiles and other artifacts for the museum collections in the USA and India.

She is a prolific and highly regarded researcher, writer and photographer and has to her credit numerous publications.

She has been the recipient of awards and fellowships including the Ashoka Foundation Fellowship, The Costume Society of America’s Millia Davenport award, the Ford Foundation Fellowship and the Fulbright Fellowship.