Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Ayushman Bhattacharya

Ayushman Bhattacharya is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He is working on “Nutrient Removal and Recovery from Domestic and Industrial Wastewater using Bio-electrochemical Systems” under the supervision of Dr. Pritha Chatterjee. He has over four years of research experience, and has worked on different microbial fuel cell configurations, autotrophic and heterotrophic denitrification, nutrient recovery, microalgae, and life cycle assessment. Ayushman received the prestigious Prime Minister Research Fellowship in 2021 and the Mitacs Globalink Research Thematic Award in 2023. He has published four research papers and two reviews in reputed international journals and has written five book chapters.

Ayushman’s understanding of environmental challenges sparked his research interest when he attended technical talks and pursued internships during his undergraduate days. He has a BTech in environmental engineering from GGSIPU, New Delhi. He has worked as a trainee engineer in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee where he was actively involved in framing environmental policies and implementing environmental laws.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology University, Rapid City, SD, Ayushman is understanding the optimal operational condition to enhance microalgae microbial fuel cell performance for simultaneous nutrient removal, CO2 sequestration, and bioelectricity generation. Further, he intends to produce biofuel using spent microalgae to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. He expects that the outcome of his research will promote commercial upscaling and prevent nutrient loading in water bodies to maintain ecological stability in the aquatic ecosystem.

Amarjeet

Amarjeet was born and brought up in a farmer family in western Uttar Pradesh, a state known as the sugar bowl of India. Since his childhood he has had an interest in understanding the science behind natural phenomena. He pursued his bachelor’s and master’s from Gurukula Kangri (Deemed to be University), Haridwar, under the DST-INSPIRE scholarship program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India. He pursued his post-graduation in physics, where he studied atmospheric physics as one of his specializations. He is currently working at CORAL, IIT Kharagpur as a DST-INSPIRE doctoral fellow.

For his doctoral research, Amarjeet is studying the changes in monsoon dynamics in recent climate change scenarios. He looks into the dynamical and thermodynamical features of atmosphere-ocean interaction that induce and modulate the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (ISMR).

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, Amarjeet will be studying state-of-the-art climate models at a supercomputer cluster to understand the mechanism of extreme rainfall events over India and its hill regions. He is focusing on future climate projections of such events and on shaping policies to mitigate and adapt to upcoming warming conditions. . Amarjeet is fond of singing and listening to regional folk songs. He writes poems in Hindi and enjoys reading ancient Vedic literature.

Syed Umer Latief

Dr. Syed Umer Latief is an assistant professor of geography in the Higher Education Department, Government of Jammu and Kashmir. He obtained his MSc in geography from the University of Kashmir, Srinagar, and PhD from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. His doctoral research focused on analyzing the impact of climate change on the Kolahoi glacier in the Kashmir Valley. During his PhD, he was awarded a travel grant by the International Council for Science to attend the ISMASS workshop in Portland, Oregon which was jointly organized by SCAR, Cambridge, England, and the IASC Secretariat, Potsdam, Germany. In 2015, he joined Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi as a post-doctoral research associate, where he worked on the glaciers of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

Dr. Umer’s research interests include glaciology, geomorphology, remote sensing, climate change and paleo-climate. He has published many research articles and book chapters on glaciers and climate change.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Umer is investigating climatic variability and glacial dynamics in the upper Liddar Valley in the geological past, as well as in the future. He will use detailed field stratigraphy aided by OSL and CRN chronology of erosional and depositional features to ascertain the timing, magnitude and pattern of glaciations during the late Quaternary period.

Amiya Kumar Sahoo

Dr. Amiya Kumar Sahoo is a senior scientist at ICAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, West Bengal. He obtained his PhD in aquaculture, specialising in fish health, from the Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Science University in 2011. He has been instrumental in Fish and River Health linking with National Mission Programmes including the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and the National Surveillance Programme on Aquatic Animal Diseases (NSPAAD). Dr. Sahoo is principal investigator of a multidisciplinary project on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in fisheries and aquaculture under the technical guidance of FAO, which is a first of its kind in India with a national identity of Indian Network on Fisheries and Animal Antimicrobial Resistance (INFAAR).

Dr. Sahoo is a member of Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of River Valley Projects of MoEFCC since 2016. He is guest editor of Environmental Science and Pollution Research and Frontiers of Marine Science, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Inland Fisheries Society of India.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Sahoo is investigating on the epidemiological tools for surveillance and effective strategies towards combating AMR in fisheries and aquaculture, an integral part of One Health.

Poulomi Ganguli

Dr. Poulomi Ganguli is an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. Her research focuses on modeling and predicting natural hazards in a multivariate context, which can help credible assessment of the risk of extreme events, especially droughts, low flows and floods, and compound weather and climate extremes in hydrology. Dr. Ganguli has received several awards, such as the Alexander von Humboldt fellowship for early career scientist, the Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research (WISER) grant by the Indo-German Science and Technology Centre, the best PhD thesis award in civil engineering for the 2012-2013 academic year at IIT Bombay, and University gold medals for undergraduate studies. She is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) task committee on compound flooding.

During her Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Ganguli is developing a probabilistic coastal compound flood hazard assessment model for low-latitude areas. She will identify and contrast compound hazard potentials of tropical cyclone-heatwave events across eastern and western coastal plains of India in the present day and projected climate scenarios, quantify the associated projected uncertainty, and identify vulnerable regions.

Kasturi Das

Dr. Kasturi Das is professor of economics at IMT Ghaziabad (IMTG). She has held multiple advisory positions in India and globally in the field of trade and the environment including the World Economic Forum’s expert group on Trade and Climate Change, and the Government of India’s high-level advisory committee on Trade and the Environment. As a member of Climate Strategies, London, Prof. Das co-led multiple research projects on trade-climate interface. A PhD in Economics from the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, Prof. Das has published extensively in the field of trade and climate change in leading scholarly journals including Nature, the American Journal of International Law, the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, and Global Environmental Change. She has delivered numerous talks and lectures, and has consulted with multiple institutions across geographies including Oxford Martin School, Tufts University, and the United Nations. In 2019, Prof. Das was hosted by the University of Oxford as a Chevening Research, Science, and Innovation Leadership (CRISP) fellow. Earlier in 2007, she visited the University of Cambridge as a Ford fellow. In 2011, she went to the University of East Anglia as the ESRC’s Governance of Clean Development visiting fellow. At IMTG, as the founding head of the I’M The Change initiative on Sustainability and Social Responsibility (SSR) since 2016, Prof. Das conceptualized and developed an innovative, service-learning course for MBA students. In its seventh year, this course has touched the lives of thousands of peoples belonging to under-served communities. Under her leadership, the I’M The Change initiative won the ‘Innovations that Inspire Challenge 2018’ of AACSB International.

During her Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence at Yale University, CT, Prof. Das is exploring the role of the global trading system in supporting industrial decarbonization and just transition in hard-to-abate sectors in developing countries, with a particular focus on the steel industry in India.

Ruchi Agrawal

Dr. Ruchi Agrawal is working as an associate fellow in the Sustainable Agriculture Division, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Gurugram. She is affiliated with Deakin University, Australia, and TERI-SAS University, New Delhi, as adjunct faculty. She has 15 years of R&D experience in nature-based solutions and sustainable agriculture research. She has expertise in developing sustainable agri-input nanoproducts, biopolymers, and green-biochemicals using biomass in an Integrated Biorefinery Platform. She has been honored with the prestigious ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research’ (INSPIRE) fellowship, and the ‘Young Scientist Governor Award’ by the Government of India. She is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the University of Tennessee, and the ÅboAkademi University in Finland. She has demonstrated an impressive publication record with 15 patents in the U.S., Europe, and Australia, and 65 research articles in international journals. She serves as an editorial board member of high impact journals and is recognized as a coveted speaker in international forums.

During her Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Agarwal is developing high-value bioproducts to demonstrate novel approaches to meet Net-Zero targets set for India and combat climate change issues. This project will develop a novel single-pot process to valorize biorefinery-waste-lignin & produce jet-fuel by rapid catalytic hydrodeoxygenation driven by synergistic Lewis acids and metal catalysts. The process will be optimized for catalyst concentration, temperature, and time. Selected agents will be investigated to inhibit side reactions, thereby improving yields. Finally, life cycle and techno-economic analysis will be done to assess environmental and economic sustainability. This study will serve the dual purpose of reducing carbon emissions and developing carbon-negative jet-fuel.

Suneet Singh

Prof. Suneet Singh is currently Head of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Idaho National Lab in the U.S. before joining IIT Bombay. He did his PhD in nuclear engineering from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He graduated with a master’s in nuclear engineering and technology in 2000 from IIT Kanpur. His research focuses on efficient numerical techniques for neutron diffusion and fluid flow. Along with this, he has been investigating bifurcations in a number of systems, including nuclear coupled thermal hydraulics and two-phase flows fluids. In 2014, he was awarded the Bhaskara Advanced Solar Energy (BASE) fellowship by the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF). He also received the S. P. Sukhatme Award for Teaching Excellence at IIT Bombay in 2023.

As the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence Scholar at Purdue University, IN, Prof. Singh is working on understanding pathways for hydrogen and heat generation along with power generation. Nuclear power stations (NPPs) release no greenhouse gases when in operation, emitting approximately the same amount of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions per unit of electricity as wind and solar energy. Load following is a technique by which power plants alter their power production in response to daily fluctuations in demand and energy prices. Because of the high construction cost of NPPs, they are typically not intended for load following and are classified as base load plants. As a result, their use for hydrogen and/ or heat generation during low-load periods provides both economic and environmental benefits.

Ajay Biswas

Dr. Ajay Biswas is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura. He obtained his PhD in engineering from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He has around thirty-four years of experience in the field, which includes teaching and research in engineering and the sciences. He is a life member of several professional societies including SESI, IEI (India), FOSET, ASME, and IIW. He was awarded as principal investigator of a prestigious project sponsored by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.

Dr. Biswas is interested in green energy, sustainable energy, climate change, and the development of advanced engineered materials and techniques.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) scholar at Kansas State University, KS, Dr. Biswas is developing an environment friendly recharge-free aluminum air battery and study its performance. Successful development and future modification of this battery will contribute to long collaborative research between the U.S. and India and will reduce carbon emissions, which is beneficial for the environment.

Purendra Prasad

Dr. Purendra Prasad is a professor of sociology at the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana. He has previously held positions at the Centre for Social Studies (CSS), Surat, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. Dr. Prasad was a British Council grantee for medical anthropology research at Brunel University, West London, UK (1999-2000), and he also collaborated with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), California Recovery and Reconnaissance team on the Bhuj Gujarat Earthquake in 2005. His research interests encompass critical agrarian studies, environmental studies, the political economy of health and development, and urban studies. His recent work investigates wealth accumulation and business elites in India as part of a broader research project on wealth inequalities in South Africa, Brazil, and India. Dr. Prasad has co-edited the book Equity and Access: Health Care Studies in India (Oxford University Press, 2018), and serves on the editorial advisory committee of the Sociological Bulletin. Additionally, he contributes to the academic and ethical advisory boards of various universities and institutions in India.

As Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Chair at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Dr. Prasad is teaching and conducting research on how the intersection of caste/race, gender, and growing economic disparities shaped wealthy elites in India and the U.S.