Stony Brook University Archives

Raj Mukhopadhyay

Dr. Raj Mukhopadhyay obtained his bachelor’s degree from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, West Bengal, in 2012 and a master’s degree from Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh, in 2014. He received his PhD from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute in 2018. He is currently working as a s cientist at ICAR-Central Soil Salinity Research Institute . His research focused on removal of organic and inorganic contaminants (metals, metalloids and emerging contaminants) from soil and water using surface modified natural clay minerals, biowastes, and nanomaterials. Dr. Mukhopadhyay has published about 25 papers on environmental remediation in journals of national and international repute. He received the IC-IMPACTS (the India-Canada Centre for Innovative Multidisciplinary Partnerships to Accelerate Community Transformation and Sustainability) Summer Institute Award on “Nanotechnologies for Safe & Sustainable Infrastructure, Integrated Water Management and Public Health”, from University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, in 2016 and the Clay Minerals Group Bursary A ward in 2019 from the Clay Minerals Group of Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland, UK .

While Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are contaminants of global concern and known as ‘forever chemicals’ due to their extremely persistent nature, development of novel, inexpensive and eco-friendly technologies is the need of the hour to tackle the PFAS issues in water and soil systems. D uring Dr. Mukhopadhyay’s Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, he is developing engineered clay mineral adsorbents using naturally available clay minerals and biowastes for removing PFAS from contaminated water and reducing PFAS bioavailability to wheat crop, deciphering an inexpensive and green PFAS remediation method.

Anita M George

Dr. Anita M George is a marine biologist and sponge taxonomist at a prestigious institution in India. She is a visiting scientist at the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa. Her 14 years of research is concentrated on the systematics of sponges along with their associated biota and how sponges act as ecological indicators to climate change factors. As a principal investigator in the DBT-Research Associate program, Dr. George conducted the first sponge taxonomy workshop at CSIR-NIO, Goa, in 2019 with grants from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Pune and Rajiv Gandhi Science and Technology Commission, Maharashtra.

Dr. George obtained her Ph.D. from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamil Nadu, where she worked on the taxonomy and biodiversity of south Indian sponges. Her post doctorate from James Cook University, Townsville, focused on the morphological changes of sponges from protected and non-protected reefs of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), Australia using remote-sensed data and Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping. Dr. George received a research and travel grant from the Australian Institute of Marine Science to research the Queensland Museum collections of calcareous sponges of GBR and Palau.

Dr. George’s Fulbright-Nehru project will explore the latitudinal gradients in sponge morphology and microbiome composition using metagenomics and environmental eDNA extracts. The research outcome will give insights into the impact of seawater temperatures on sponge metabolism and biodiversity. Dr. George will share her GIS and taxonomic knowledge with her host, where the students can work in their interdisciplinary fields of research.

Amritha Radhakrishnan

Ms. Amritha Radhakrishnan is a Ph.D. candidate and Teaching Assistant at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Uttarakhand. The larger fields within which her doctoral research is embedded are medical humanities, gender studies, memory studies and visual studies. Drawing theoretical frameworks from these fields, she studies the entailment of traumatic memories of illnesses in graphic narratives using the unique formal properties of the comic medium and the disentanglement of represented memory by readers.

Ms. Radhakrishnan is a recipient of the JRF fellowship awarded by the University Grants Commission (UGC), Government of India for doctoral research and is currently a Senior Research Fellow (SRF). She holds a master’s degree in English literature from Sacred Heart College, Kerala and a bachelor’s in English literature and communication studies (double major) from St. Xavier’s College, Kerala, where she was a university rank holder. She has presented papers at numerous national and international conferences, including “The Child of the Future” Conference hosted by the University of Cambridge, where she also mediated a session. Ms. Radhakrishnan has been a resource person for a talk series organized by the Sacred Heart College, where she spoke on the various possibilities of graphic medicine as a field. She has co-authored an article on the functions of graphic illness narratives, published by the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, Taylor & Francis (2022). Her forthcoming book chapter on representations of chronic pain in the graphic medium will be published in a volume called Keywords/Images in Graphic Medicine. Apart from her research, she devotes her time to travel and cinema. She is a trained Carnatic classical singer and can speak five languages. She is passionate about learning new languages and understanding different cultures.

Ms. Radhakrishnan’s doctoral dissertation focuses on the emergence of graphic medicine, its production and consumption, with particular emphasis on the socio-political role of personal illness narratives in the advocacy for rights and in developing health literacy. As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, she is furthering her research by gaining access to cartoon museums and libraries and by engaging in conversations with inter-disciplinary scholars in the fields pertaining to her doctoral research.

Meenu Rajagopalan Nair

Meenu is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune. Her doctoral thesis focuses on understanding the vertical wind and cloud variability under diverse monsoon convective environment over India. Her research interest is atmospheric phenomena, specializing in atmospheric convection, cloud dynamics, microphysics, and radar meteorology. She has presented her work at many national and international conferences.

Prior to her doctoral studies, Meenu completed her graduate studies at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita School of Arts and Sciences. She holds a double Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Mathematics and a master’s in physics. Meenu received the INSPIRE Scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology in 2013 and secured an INSPIRE fellowship for her doctoral research in 2020.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Stony Brook University, Stonybrook, NY, Meenu is investigating the role of mixed-phase cloud microphysics during monsoon, utilizing remote sensing instruments. Her objective is to broaden research horizons and foster cross-cultural collaborations. With a focus on understanding cloud variability in diverse convective regimes, particularly in the Western Ghats, she is eager to contribute meaningfully to cloud physics. Besides academics, Meenu enjoys movies, music, and trekking.

Shilpa Ashok Pandit

Shilpa Pandit is an Associate Professor, at the School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University, Gujarat. Dr. Pandit’s research has focused on immersive experiences of Indian art and aesthetics; how affect generates well-being from philosophical and lived perspectives. As part of her enquiry, Dr. Pandit has worked with music and dance students, teachers and performing communities in some Indian cities. Dr. Pandit’s search for elements of immersive well-being in Indian music theory and practice are part of her studentship in both psychology and music. At Ahmedabad University, she teaches social, developmental as well as positive psychology, having completed her education in psychology from Delhi university and the University of Madras.

In her other avatars, Shilpa has co-founded a Bengaluru based NGO—Dreampath Foundation that works with adolescents for career exploration and counseling; worked with NGOs in the domains of health, nutrition and livelihoods. She worked closely on rural employment, as a UNDP Research Officer at MoRD, from 2014-2016. She was also a Chevening CRISP scholar, studying at University of Oxford, UK in 2018.

Through the Fulbright fellowship, Dr. Pandit is working closely with domain experts in music and Indian philosophers of well-being, to generate new insights on the relationship between, self, affect, art/aesthetics and well-being.