Paul Varkey Parayil
Board Member
Medical Ambassadors International
TERM: 2015 – current
Paul was born in India, the oldest of three children. When he was a young child, his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where he went to school from kindergarten through high school, graduating in 2000.
After high school, Paul moved back to North India for college and graduated with a computer science degree. He then moved to the United States to pursue his graduate program in Computer Science at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
In his first weekend in Chicago, he attended service at the Moody Church and stayed and served at Moody for seven years, first in college ministry, then with a tough group of fourth-through-sixth-grade boys in the inner city. At Moody Church, Paul made a close friend who was already associated with MAI and that is how he came to know of MAI.
In 2011, Paul moved to California as an engineer. His faith continued to grow as he attended Grace Presbyterian Church in Palo Alto. Paul met his wife, Catherine, during the summer of 2012. As soon as he saw her, he knew he would marry her. Catherine had experienced missions work in India and knew the culture. Paul saw God’s faithfulness, love, and mercy as his traditional, Christian family in India accepted Catherine. He and Catherine married and now have two daughters. They enjoy taking dance lessons together, particularly Latin Salsa and Blues Swing. Currently, Paul and Catherine worship with the Marthoma church in Silicon Valley (a unique global Indian Christian church – Reformed in its theology, and Syriac Orthodox in its heritage). Paul and Catherine serve there, respectively, as a deacon and as a choir leader.
Professionally, Paul’s academic and research interests and work have been in Artificial Intelligence, and, in his time in the software development industry, he has pursued applications in insurance, search and, currently, in connectivity, where he is working to reduce the cost of connectivity around the world, especially in the developing world. Paul’s current portfolio of projects at work happily coincides with areas where MAI is active!
Paul is thankful for the opportunity to serve MAI. He continues to be humbled and inspired by stories from the field. He brings to the MAI Board a willingness to provide perspective, cross-cultural experience, and an awareness of development issues.