Gagan is from the Punjab region in Northern India, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently lives in Kāne‘ohe, O‘ahu. She received her B.S. in Natural Resource and Environmental Management with an emphasis in Marine Coastal Ecology in 2021 from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She found her love for community, field work, and education through working on Maui Nui as a field technician intern with DLNR’s Division of Aquatic Resources and at the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology as lead instructional staff for the Center for Community Education. When she’s not at HIMB, she works with Kānehūnāmoku Voyaging Academy as a wa’a practitioner and project researcher. Her interests lie in bridge capacity between community, academia, and ocean conservation management strategies through place-based initiatives in Hawai‘i.