Sumeet Anand

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research & Teaching)
Project Title:	Dhrupad of Darbhanga Tradition in Hindustani Classical Music-Voice training, composition repertoire, performance aesthetics and historical discourse
Field of Study:	Performing Arts
Home Institution:	Freelance Performer and Independent Researcher, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sumeet Anand is a performing vocalist of the extant form of Hindustani classical music, Dhrupad. He is also a methodical teacher and a meticulous researcher, a distinguishing combination. He received early training from his grandfathers (including noted vocalist Pandit Siyaram Tiwari) and advanced his skills under the tutelage of Pandit Abhay Narayan Mallick of Darbhanga-Mallick Dhrupad tradition.

A familiar name in major music festivals across India, Dr. Anand also broadcasts from AIR, Delhi. He is an empaneled performer with ICCR and has toured extensively across Europe. He has delivered lecture-demonstrations at UCLA, NID Haryana, NSD, and IHC New Delhi. He received fellowships from the Government of India and the Government of Delhi, and completed his research on Dhrupad, it’s evolutionary history and pedagogical shifts.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award (Research and Teaching) fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles, CA, Dr. Anand is sharing the theoretical and practical aspects of Hindustani classical Dhrupad with his students. The fellowship will enable him to be a part of a truly global music community chance, and get introduced to music genres like jazz, western classical, African, Thai, and Turkish music traditions which will be an enriching experience for his artistic development. He will also be undertaking minor research under Prof. Anna Morcom on the evolving performance repertoire of Dhrupad.

Souvik Chakraborty

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research & Teaching)
Project Title:	Data-Physics fusion in Computational Mechanics
Field of Study:	Mathematical Sciences
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Illinois, Champaign, IL
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Souvik Chakraborty is assistant professor at the Applied Mechanics Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He also holds a joint faculty position at the Yardi School of Artificial Intelligence. His research interest is at the intersection of scientific computing and machine learning, with a focus on developing scalable, interpretable, and trustworthy machine learning algorithms for solving scientific and engineering problems. He is a recipient of the prestigious INAE Young Engineers Award.

Dr. Chakraborty joined IIT Delhi in 2020. Prior to that, he spent two years at the University of Notre Dame. He also spent some time at the University of British Columbia as a postdoctoral researcher. He obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) fellowship, Dr. Chakraborty will do a combination of both research with teaching. He is developing novel algorithms and frameworks for seamless fusion of data and physics. It is expected that the developed algorithm will address challenges such as out-of-distribution generalization and interpretability and will be a step towards realizing the dream of digital twins for infrastructural systems. Dr. Chakraborty is also teaching a course on operator learning, with the goal of developing synergy between teaching and research.

Rahul Mangal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research & Teaching)
Project Title:	Hybrid self-propulsion of Janus colloids (JCs) and the Rheological impact of active JCs on the Viscoelastic medium
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	Cornell University,
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Rahul Mangal serves as an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He completed his PhD in 2016 from Cornell University with Prof. Lynden Archer, where he worked on exploring the structural and dynamic characteristics of nano-particle polymer composites. After his Ph.D., Dr. Mangal did his postdoctoral research with Prof. Nicholas Abbott at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he explored how the anisotropic properties of liquid crystals influence the behavior of active colloids.

Dr. Mangal’s team at IIT Kanpur is conducting experimental investigations on a diverse range of problems associated with soft matter systems, polymers, and colloids. Their recent focus is on the synthesis and dynamics of artificial micro-swimmers in complex environments.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) fellowship at Cornell University, Ithaca, NJ, Dr. Mangal is investigating the synthesis of hybrid self-propulsion of Janus colloids and the rheological impact of active JCs on the viscoelastic medium. Through this project, Dr. Mangal will strive to facilitate the ongoing scientific endeavors in controlling the motion of artificial micro-swimmers in microscopic domains for their potential applications in cargo/ drug delivery, bio-diagnostics, and tuning material properties using active colloids as additives. Dr. Mangal is also set to teach a course on polymer physics at Cornell, aiming to foster a synergy between teaching and research.

Miriam Chandy Menacherry

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research & Teaching)
Project Title:	Visibilising the Roles of Women in Cinema
Field of Study:	Visual Arts
Home Institution:	Filament Pictures, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Miriam Chandy Menacherry, filmmaker and founder of Filament Pictures, is known for her documentary films which celebrate everyday heroes, such as Stuntmen of Bollywood (2005), Robot Jockey (2007), The Rat Race (2011), Lyari Notes (2015), The Leopard’s Tribe (2022) and From the Shadows (2022). She was a Global Media Makers fellow (instituted by Film Independent) and a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television) India fellow. She is also a masterclass panelist at IFFI on “Indian documentary on the World Stage”.

Miriam has completed her postgraduate degree from the AJK Mass Communication Research Center, New Delhi. Her social documentaries shed light on invisible narratives to construct a complex reality overlooked by mainstream media, and they have been selected at leading film festivals and broadcast worldwide. Her films have also been screened in educational institutes in India and abroad such as IIT Mumbai, Mount Carmel College, AJK Mass Communication Research Center, New York University, the University of Texas at Austin, Oxford University, and SOAS.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) fellowship at the University of Texas, Austin, TX, Miriam is engaging with students of film to develop a dialogue about critically important yet invisible stories from India and expand the scope of her research supported by the India Foundation for the Arts to visibilise the contribution of women in cinema to include parallel developments in Hollywood.

G.L. Samuel

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research & Teaching)
Project Title:	Development of Digital Twins for the Components of Smart Factory
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Host Institution:	Texas A&M University, College Station, TX
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. G.L. Samuel is a distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, where he leads the Centre of Excellence for Advanced Laser Material Processing and Surface Engineering. He completed his PhD at IIT Madras in 2001 and pursued Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Kyungpook National University, South Korea, before joining the faculty at IIT Madras in 2005.

With expertise in Micro Manufacturing, Advanced Laser Material Processing, and Metrology, Dr. Samuel teaches a range of courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels including Automation in Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Micro Manufacturing Technology, Machining and Metrology, as well as Modelling and Simulation.

Dr. Samuel has a strong publication record and holds patents in various areas of manufacturing. He has organized continuing education programmes, workshops, and international conferences, fostering academic development and collaborations with universities worldwide, including Texas A&M University.

As a part of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr. Samuel will conduct research at Texas A&M, focusing on developing digital twins for smart factory entities. The project aims to create a virtual representation that mimics the behaviour of the physical machines, enabling real-time monitoring, analysis, and optimization of all the processes in an autonomous factory.

Indranil Acharya

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Memories of Untouchability and Racism: An Archival Study of the “Non-canonical” Literatures
Field of Study:	Language/Literature/Linguistics
Home Institution:	Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal
Host Institution:	University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr Indranil Acharya is Professor of English at Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. He specializes in the documentation and translation of Bengali Dalit narratives on the tragic plight of Partition refugees and the victims of Bangladesh Liberation War (1971). Survival and Other Stories: Anthology of Bangla Dalit Stories (2012) and Listen to the Flames: Texts and Readings from the Margins (2016) are two major publications in this area. He has also researched on the documentation, translation and digital archiving of endangered languages and cultures of Eastern India. The Languages of West Bengal (2019) is a seminal publication in this field. Dr Acharya has led an indigenous literary movement in Eastern India through a multilingual publication titled Janajati Darpan (since 2017).

During his tenure as a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence scholar, Dr Acharya intends to expand the scope of his archival research on endangered folk performance traditions of Bengal- a project he had been working on since 2013. Through the translation of some critically endangered folk forms, he wants to explore the issue of graded inequality among the ex-untouchables. He would also attempt to trace the continuities of such dying traditions among the Dalit diaspora in the United States.

Sudip Bhattacharyya

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Probing Fundamental Aspects of Neutron Stars using Millisecond Pulsars
Field of Study:	Physics
Home Institution:	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Prof. Sudip Bhattacharyya is a professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, Maharashtra. He is also the current Payload Manager of the Soft X-ray Telescope aboard AstroSat, the first dedicated Indian astronomy satellite. He primarily works on extremely compact cosmic objects, such as neutron stars and black holes. These objects provide excellent opportunities to probe extreme aspects of physics, such as strong gravity, high magnetic field, accretion-ejection mechanism, high-density degenerate matter, and gravitational waves, which cannot be studied in terrestrial laboratories. Prof. Bhattacharyya studies these objects primarily using X-ray satellite data and theoretical modelling. Prof. Bhattacharyya did his Ph.D. in astrophysics at the Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru, and was a Research Associate at the University of Maryland at College Park and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the USA, before joining a faculty position at TIFR in 2007. He received the NASA Space Science Achievement Award in 2007.

Prof. Bhattacharyya’s Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence project aims to study the evolution of rapidly spinning neutron stars to probe their fundamental aspects. The project can be relevant for several Indian and U.S. observatories.

Debasish Borah

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Probing the origin of baryon asymmetry of the universe
Field of Study:	Physics
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati, Assam
Host Institution:	University of Pittsburgh, Guwahati, Assam
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Debasish Borah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati. He obtained his MSc-PhD dual degree from IIT Bombay in 2012 and subsequently worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics, Tezpur University before joining IIT Guwahati in 2015. He has received several awards, including the Canadian Commonwealth Fellowship, Young Scientist Medal from the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Young Scientist Award from the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) and the Government of Assam, India among others.

Dr. Borah’s research interest lies in the area of dark matter (DM), baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU) and the origin of neutrino mass which cannot be explained by the standard model (SM) of particle physics, motivating the need for beyond standard model (BSM) physics. During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr. Borah is planning to study different BSM scenarios explaining the origin of BAU with the aim of probing them at ongoing and future colliders through conventional and new search strategies. He also plans to find synergy among collider probes and several indirect detection prospects at gravitational wave and cosmology experiments.

Vasudharani Devanthan

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Neuronal Alterations Induced by Hyperglycemia: Electrophysiological Recordings of Adult Retinal Slices and Mouse Behaviour Studies
Field of Study:	Neurosciences
Home Institution:	Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISER) Tirupati, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh
Host Institution:	Harvard University, MA
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr Vasudharani Devanthan is Associate Professor, Department of Biology and Associate Dean of Students at IISER Tirupati. Dr Devanathan’s research group at IISER Tirupati is engaged in understanding the structure and functional changes induced in retinal neurons in altered metabolic conditions such as hyperglycemia and hypoxia. Their research will contribute to understanding signaling mechanisms underlying diabetic retinopathy and the impact of glucose insult to neurons in long term diabetes. Collaborating with clinicians in Tirupati area, she is also engaged in novel biomarkers for Glioblastoma.

Dr Devanathan completed her postgraduate degree from the University of Madras and was working in Astra Zeneca, Bengaluru as a junior scientist. She completed her Ph.D. from Center for Molecular Neurosciences in Hamburg. She did her postdoctoral studies in university hospitals of Duesseldorf and Tübingen. She returned to India and had a short stint at the M.S University of Baroda (Dr Vikram Sarabhai Institute of Cell and Molecular Biology) as a teaching faculty. She has been with IISER Tirupati since its inception from 2015.

Dr Devanathan’s Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence project is focused on understanding the electrophysiological changes in retinal neurons altered glucose and will be engaged in mouse behavioral studies.

Sutapa Dutta

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	American Women Missionaries and Women’s Issues in America and India
Field of Study:	Women’s and Gender Studies
Home Institution:	Gargi College, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Drexel University, PA
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Seven months

Brief Bio:

Sutapa Dutta is Professor of English at Gargi College, University of Delhi. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Her research interests and publications are on eighteenth and nineteenth-century writings, and cover gender, education, and identity in colonial India.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, London, and has been a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. She has received several national and international grants for research work and has published extensively. She has authored British Women Missionaries in Bengal, 1793-1861, and Disciplined Subjects: Schooling in Colonial Bengal, and has edited Mapping India: Transitions and Transformations, 18th -19th Century, British Women Travellers: Empire and Beyond 1770-1870 and Making the ‘Woman’: Discourses of Gender in 18th-19th Century India.

Prof. Sutapa Dutta’s Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence project seeks to study the role of American women missionaries in India in the 19th century, and their contribution towards female education and health care. A critical understanding of their agency in the past will enable us to perceive present shifts in perceptions of women’s question by evangelists and conservative religious denominations across social and religious platforms in the U.S. and India.

Pijush Ghosh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Design of an Oscillating pH-Responsive Autonomous Soft Actuator
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Host Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology Madras, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Prof. Pijush Ghosh is a professor in the Department of Applied Mechanics and Biomedical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His research group focuses on design and fabrication of stimuli responsive soft actuators. Solvent and light are the two major stimuli that his group is working on. He applies molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the underlying mechanism involved in solvent triggered actuation and polymer-solvent interaction. His group also works on developing polymer-clay and polymer-concrete interfaces for different civil engineering projects. Mechanical investigation of cluster crystals is another area of his research interest.

Prof. Ghosh received his undergraduate degree in civil engineering from Bengal Engineering College, Shibpur Howrah, MTech from IIT Kanpur and Ph.D. from North Dakota State University. He did a brief postdoc at Johns Hopkins University. He worked for about three years in URS corporation before joining IIT Madras in 2011.

Besides research and teaching, Prof. Ghosh takes a deep interest in rural education. He has started an initiative called ‘Teach to Learn’ (www.teachtolearn.co.in)  about 10 years back, which focus on connecting the premier institute of the country with rural schools applying different education models.

Ajay Gogia

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Impact of Carboplatin/PARP inhibitor in BRCA associated breast cancer
Field of Study:	Public Health
Home Institution:	All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Cleveland Clinic, OH
Grant Start Month:	March 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr Ajay Gogia is an Additional Professor in the Department of Medical Oncology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He received his M.B.B.S, M.D. (Internal Medicine) degree from Banaras Hindu University, D.M. (Medical Oncology) from AIIMS, New Delhi.

He has over 17 years of working and teaching experience in Medical Oncology and specializes in Breast Cancer and Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. His research is well published with more than 400 peer-reviewed articles in National and International oncology journals He has received the Dronacharya Award for his excellence from the Health Minister of India.

Dr. Ajay Gogia’s Fulbright-Nehru project aims to understand the molecular pathogenesis of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and see the impact of Carboplatin and /or PARP inhibitor with standard dose-dense neoadjuvant chemotherapy on BRCA-associated triple-negative breast cancer. The precise stratification of TNBC is crucial for the development of potent standardized and targeted therapies, as it has a very poor prognosis. BRCA mutational status is the only clinically validated biomarker for personalized therapy in TNBC.

Kalyan K. Mondal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Functionally verifying the activation of rice OsSWEET15 by PthXo2-TALE of Indian Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae, causing bacterial blight of rice, using CRISPR-Cas and bioinformatic tools.
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur, Chhattisgarh
Host Institution:	University of Missouri, MO
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Kalyan K. Mondal is presently working as Joint Director (Research) at the ICAR-National Institute of Biotic Stress Management, Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India. Prior to joining ICAR-NIBSM, he worked as Principal Scientist at Division of Plant Pathology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. He worked extensively on the bacterial type-3-secretion-system (T3SS)-effectors and how bacterial pathogens use the effectors to subvert plant immune responses, PTI/ETI. He profiled the T3SS-effectors in two important bacterial pathogens, Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. punicae (Xap) and X. oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo) infecting pomegranate and rice. His group identified key effectors (XopF, XopR in Xoo; XopC2, XopL, XopN in Xap) that immensely contribute to suppress plant immune responses. Using Y2H system his team identified the interactor(s) for effectors and further demonstrated that silencing the interactors in host plants led to disease resistance. Dr. Kalyan is a Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, Dr. Mondal is investigating the TAL effector PthXo2 of Xoo and its functional role in activating OsSWEET15 during blight disease development using CRISPR-Cas editing tools. This work may help understanding OsSWEET-mediated pathogenesis and identify novel targets to counter bacterial blight disease in rice.

Lalitha Kamath

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Commoning Climate Planning: Thinking from Wetscapes across Global South and North
Field of Study:	Urban and Regional Planning
Home Institution:	Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Prof Lalitha Kamath is Professor and Chairperson of the Centre for Urban Policy and Governance, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. She has a Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Policy Development from Rutgers University.

Prof Kamath’s research interests include urban governance, planning, infrastructure, urban informality, and critical pedagogies. She writes on dominant forms of urban transformations in the Global South – both the structural violence of spatial transformation and processes of slow violence to urban environments. Her writing also demonstrates the agency of marginalized groups in challenging dominant urbanisms through ethnography, film and multimedia formats (see https://www.inhabitedsea.org/the-sea-and-the-city and https://makebreak.tiss.edu/)

Based on her ongoing work on climate planning in Mumbai, in her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Prof Kamath is doing two comparisons with estuarine cities in the U.S. and South Asia. First, to illuminate how expert-led planning interventions have marginalized littoral communities/environments and also how these communities demonstrate ‘ordinary’ expertise in climate changed cities. Second, to deepen cross-fertilization between Northern and Southern theoretical perspectives that challenge dominant planning expertise by building from the situated expertise of marginalized communities. This will help catalyze more just climate planning across both South and North

Naorem Kiranmala Devi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Hypertension Management in High-risk Communities of India and the U.S.: an Anthropological Study
Field of Study:	Anthropology
Home Institution:	University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Miami University, OH
Grant Start Month:	February 2025
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Naorem Kiranmala Devi currently serves as an Associate Professor at the University of Delhi. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Delhi.

Her research focuses on demographic and genomic variations among populations, particularly in India’s northeast region. Dr. Devi specializes in nutritional anthropology, biochemical genetics, and molecular anthropology. Through her research initiatives she has extensively explored the population specific risk factors of cardio-metabolic disorders in India along with the associated genetic and epigenetic alterations. With substantial experience in academia, she has contributed to course development, conference organization, and research administration. She has published over 40 research articles and book chapters, exploring diverse topics such as cardiovascular health, genetic polymorphisms, epigenetic studies, and socio-cultural determinants of health. Additionally, she actively engages in community service, particularly in raising awareness about health issues such as thalassemia and hypertension through outreach programs and screening camps.

Dr. Kiranmala’s Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence project aims to identify and understand the implicit cultural components of the hypertension management programs in the U.S. and India, and work with local experts to explore ways to develop a culturally appropriate intervention module for the management of hypertension in high-risk communities of Punjab, India.

Anjineyulu Kothakota

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Development and optimization of non-thermal processing techniques for improvement of biodegradable food packaging materials
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	CSIR-National Institute for Interdisciplinary science and Technology (NIIST), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	South Dakota State University, SD
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Anjineyulu Kothakota, is working as a Scientist in CSIR- National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. He has done his bachelors and master’s in food technology from Andhra Pradesh and Punjab respectively and Ph.D. in Agricultural Processing and Food Engineering from GBPUAT, Uttarakhand. He has a well proven track record of achievements in the field of post-harvest technologies and agri-waste management and has successfully developed technologies for conversion of agricultural residues to biodegradable products. The technology to produce such biodegradable products has so far been transferred to 18 companies.. A vital impact of these products is the reduction of the carbon footprint by 60 % when compared with plastic and paper counterparts, jobs for 5,000 to 7,000 rural workers; and additional income for 100 to 200 farmers for their raw material waste. He has also completed projects worth INR 3 crores from various funding agencies and private multinational companies like ITC Ltd. He has also recipient of several accolades like BRICS Young Scientist award 2023, Kerala State Young Scientist Award-2023, INAE –Young Engineer Award 2022, ICAR-NAAS Young Scientist Award 2021, ICAR-NAAS Associate Award 2023, CSIR Award for Science and Technology Innovations for Rural Development (CAIRD) 2020.

During Fulbright fellowship, he is focusing on the development and optimization non-thermal processing techniques for improvement of biodegradable food packaging materials sourced for U.S. based agri biomass like corn wastes, soybean wastes at South Dakota State University.

Manzoor Koyakutty

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Novel Nano-Immunotherapy Platform for Glioblastoma: A translational collaboration between Amrita University, India and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA
Field of Study:	Bioengineering
Home Institution:	Amrita Vishwavidyapeetham University, Kochi, Kerala
Host Institution:	Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, MD
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Dr Manzoor Koyakutty is a Professor at Amrita Center for Nanoscience and Molecular Medicine, Kochi. He has worked extensively in molecular mechanisms responsible for cancer progression, drug-resistance, and tumor immunology, and developed many novel cancer-nanomedicine formulations and immunotherapeutic for leukemia, liver tumor and glioblastoma. His lab currently investigates systemic immune-suppression in peripheral organs as well as local tumor-microenvironment and developing novel nano-bio engineering tools to overcome such immune-suppression.

He has published > 150 papers in peer reviewed journals including Biomaterials, Small, J. of Controlled Release, Sci. Reports, Int. J Immunopharmacology with H-index 48 and citation 10530, and filed 40 patents of which 20 granted and 06 licensed for translational development. He was elected as Fellow of National Academy of Science, India (2017), top 2% scientist by Stanford University rating, 2022, received Amrita University Faculty Gold Medal 2023, and Chancellors Award 2024.

During the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, he is working with Dr Henry Brem and Dr Betty Tylor, Glioma Center, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA, for the combinatorial targeting of brain tumor immuno-biology using intracranially injectable nano-hydrogel system. This work may help glioma patients to have better therapeutic outcome.

Ashutosh Kumar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Empires and Subaltern Rights: Writings of Indentured Indian Labourers on Colonial Plantations, c.1830-1920
Field of Study:	History
Home Institution:	Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	Harvard University, MA
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Ashutosh Kumar is an Associate Professor of History at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He earned his Ph.D. from the History Department of the University of Delhi, where he also taught from 2012 to 2014. He received South-South Exchange Program for Research on the History of Development (SEPHIS), a Government of Netherlands funded program Fellowship during his Ph.D. He was fellow at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom; Yale University, USA; Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi; the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), New Delhi, and at Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, Shimla. He is president of Indian Association for South Asian Studies (IASAS) and Chairman of Centre for Alternative Studies in Social Sciences, New Delhi.

His most recent publications include Coolies of the Empire: Indentured Indians in the Sugar Colonies, 1830-1920’, Cambridge University Press, 2017 and ‘Girmitiyas and Global Indian Diaspora: Origins, Memories and Identities’ Cambridge University Press, 2023.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence scholar, Dr. Kumar is exploring issue of rights of Indian indentured laborers on colonial sugar plantations during nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through the letters, petitions and depositions of indentured Indian migrants with a particular emphasis on the letters they wrote in regional Indian language. His project analyses such laborers’ letters and makes the case that Indian indentured laborers were able to fight for their “rights”, natural and contractual with planters and the colonial government through petitions, in addition to being able to voice their feelings and concerns on a variety of other matters.

Pradeep Kumar Misra

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Policies and Practices of Integrating Technology for EQUAL Educational Opportunities in U.S. Universities: Lessons and Cautions for Indian Universities
Field of Study:	Educational Policy and Planning
Home Institution:	National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Florida, FL
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Prof. Pradeep Kumar Misra is a Professor and Director of the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE) at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA), New Delhi. His research specializations are higher education, teacher education, and educational technology.

He has received several prestigious international research scholarships like the Commonwealth Academic Fellowship of CSC, UK; Doctoral and Senior Researcher Scholarship of DAAD, Germany; Erasmus Mundus Visiting Scholar Scholarship of European Commission; National Scholarship of Slovak Republic; MASHAV Scholarship of Israel Government; and Research Exchange Scholarship of FMSH, France.

He widely published nationally and internationally, completed research and development projects, and developed educational media programs. His recent books, Teaching Competencies for 21st Century Teachers: Practical Approaches to Learning (Routledge, 2024) and Learning and Teaching for Teachers (Springer, 2021), impact teachers’ teaching practices globally.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, Prof. Misra is examining the policies and practices of different U.S. universities to gain insights into how they integrate technology to offer EQUAL educational opportunities to their students. Through his research, Prof. Misra aims to benefit Indian and U.S. universities to learn valuable lessons and take necessary cautions when incorporating technology into their academic programs.

Ujjwal Maulik

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Exploring Chromatin Accessibility Patterns: AI-driven Analysis of NicE-seq Imaging Data
Field of Study:	Computer Science
Home Institution:	Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal
Host Institution:	New England Biolabs, MA
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Prof. Ujjwal Maulik is a full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Jadavpur University since 2004. He was also the former head of the same department. He has worked in many universities and research laboratories in Australia, China, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovenia and U.S. and also delivered lectures in many more countries. He is the Fellow of India (INAE), India, National Academy of Science India (NASI), International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), US, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), U.S., Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA), Singapore and Distinguish Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a Distinguish Speaker of IEEE as well as ACM. His research interests include machine learning, pattern analysis, data science, bioinformatics and computational biology, multi-objective optimization, social networking, IoT and autonomous car. In these areas he has published ten books, more than three hundred fifty papers, mentored several start-ups, filed several patents and already guided twenty five doctoral students. His other interests include outdoor sports and classical music.

During his tenure as Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship Prof. Maulik is working for the better understanding of newly developed NicE-seq technology for chromatin accessibility through the application of artificial intelligence (AI) methods. This research has the potential to uncover novel regulatory mechanisms and advance our understanding of the functional genomics landscape. The AI-driven approaches can expedite and enhance chromatin accessibility studies, leading to advancements in various fields, including gene regulation, disease mechanisms, and therapeutic development.

Shilpa Ashok Pandit

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Exploring Rasa: Music, Neuroscience and Indian Psychology of Well-being
Field of Study:	Psychology
Home Institution:	Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Host Institution:	Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
Grant Start Month:
Duration of Grant:	Five months

Brief Bio:

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.

Sriparna Saha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Unveiling the Linguistic Divide: A Unified LLM Fine-tuning for Low-Resource Languages
Field of Study:	Computer Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Patna, Patna, Bihar
Host Institution:	University of South Carolina, SC
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sriparna Saha is currently serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Patna, India. She has authored or co-authored more than 400 papers. Her current research interests include machine-learning, deep-learning, natural-language-processing, and biomedical-information-extraction. She is the recipient of Google-India-Women-in-Engineering-Award-2008, NASI-Young-Scientist-Platinum-Jubilee-Award-2016, BIRD Award-2016, IEI-Young-Engineers’-Award-2016, SERB-Women-in-Excellence-Award-2018, Pattern-Recognition-Letters-Editor-Award-2023, prestigious “Young-Faculty-Research-Fellowship” under Visvesvaraya-PhD-Scheme for Electronics-&-IT for-5-years (Jan 2019-Jan 2024), Humboldt-Research-Fellowship, Indo-U.S.-Fellowship-for-Women-in-STEMM-2018. She won the best paper awards in ICONIP 2023, CLINICAL-NLP workshop of COLING 2016, and Area-chair-award (Information Extraction) at IJCNLP-AACL 2023.

With her Fulbright fellowship, at University of South Carolina, Sriparna is working towards developing some unified large language models (LLM) for low-resource settings. In general, it has been shown in the recent literature that the existing LLMs are not performing well for low resource Indian languages like Bengali. This disparity raises concerns about the fairness of LLMs, as it may lead to biased outcomes and unequal access to information and resources for speakers of low-resource languages. In this project Sriparna aims to develop some LLMs for low-resource language setting by developing a scalable training approach using reinforcement learning from human feedback.

Satyajit Sahu

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Synthesis and Characterization of Double Halide Perovskite for Memristor Fabrication and Neuromorphic Applications
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur, Jodhpur, Rajasthan
Host Institution:	University of Central Florida, FL
Grant Start Month:	May 2024
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Satyajit Sahu has been serving as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, IIT Jodhpur since 2021. He earned his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute for the Cultivation of Science in 2009 and completed his postdoctoral research at the National Institute for Materials Science, Japan, in 2012. He then joined the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur as an Assistant Professor in 2013. Dr Sahu has been honored with several prestigious awards, including the SPARC DUO fellowship in 2019 and the BRICS Young Scientist Forum award in 2020. In 2022, he was awarded the SERB SIRE fellowship for collaborative research at the University of Toronto. His current research focuses on the study of semiconductor devices utilizing quantum dots, 2D materials, and organic materials, with a particular interest in exploring the use of single molecules for electronic applications. He has authored over 80 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence scholar, Dr. Sahu is concentrating on the synthesis and characterization of double halide perovskite materials to develop memristors with enhanced performance. He aims to explore the potential application of these memristors in neuromorphic systems, seeking to improve their efficiency and functionality.

Pratik Sen

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Academic & Professional Excellence Award (Research)
Project Title:	Investigation of Enzyme Dynamics in Alternate Media at the Single Molecular Level to Elucidate Life in Extreme Condition
Field of Study:	Chemistry
Home Institution:	Indian institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Prof. Pratik Sen joined the Department of Chemistry at IIT Kanpur as an Assistant Professor in December 2008 and became a full professor in November 2018. He is currently the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair at IIT Kanpur. Prof. Sen has received several awards and recognition for his research, which includes the Young Scientist Medal from Indian National Science Academy (INSA) in 2012; Young Faculty Research Fellowship from IIT Kanpur, 2015-2017; Member INYAS, 2016-2020; Young Faculty Research Fellowship of MeitY, India in 2018, Fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2021 and Bronze Medal of Chemical Research Society of India in 2021. Prof. Sen has published over 130 research articles in international journals of repute.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowships, his primary research interest is to understand clues about the existence of extremophiles (species that can survive in extreme conditions like cold, desiccation, osmotic stress, etc.). Studies show that extremophiles accumulate osmolytes in high concentrations that can form an alternate media, which probably maintains the enzymatic behaviour in harsh environments. He aims to study enzyme conformational dynamics at freezing conditions in the presence of alternate media using single-molecule spectroscopy. The proposed study can be instrumental in understanding the enzyme’s stability and activity in extreme conditions.

Lubhanshi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Unravelling the Selective Ubiquitin Recognition by Elad and Comparison with other Deubiquitinating Enzymes
Field of Study:	Bioengineering
Home Institution:	Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	Duke University, NC
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Lubhanshi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai. Her thesis focuses on the specificity of effector proteases towards host proteins that are crucial in host proteasomal degradation pathways. Using techniques such as fluorescence spectroscopy and mutational analysis, she is looking for the mechanism of selective recognition of ubiquitin-like proteins by deubiquitinating enzymes.

Lubhanshi holds a bachelor’s degree in science from Kurukshetra University, and a master’s degree in chemistry from Guru Jambeshwar University of Science and Technology, Haryana. As a researcher, she likes to participate in science outreach programs.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Lubhanshi is exploring the host pathways that are affected by the deubiquitinating enzymes. Primarily, her focus lies in understanding how various effector proteases impact the host’s ubiquitination machinery, thereby facilitating the pathogens’ survival and replication. In her leisure time, she likes to sketch and paint. She enjoys travelling and exploring nature and diverse food from various cultures.

Supongsenla Ao

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Design and Characterization of Biomass-Derived Hydrophobic Catalysts for Biofuel Production
Field of Study:	Chemistry
Home Institution:	National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam
Host Institution:	University of Tennessee, TN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Supongsenla Ao is currently pursuing her Ph.D. at the National Institute of Technology, Silchar, Assam. Her research focuses on utilizing waste materials to synthesize biofuels, driven by the imperative to find sustainable energy solutions amidst escalating global energy demands and environmental concerns.

With a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from St. Joseph’s College, Nagaland University, and a master’s degree from Kumaon University, Uttarakhand, Supongsenla has actively engaged in building the gaps between her Naga community and diverse Indian culture throughout her college days. She was ranked 10th in chemistry honours during her bachelor’s degree and also served as a class representative.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, Supongsenla is exploring large-scale biofuel production for industrialization in India, particularly investigating the limitation of microwave reactor mechanism for bulk synthesis, aiming to overcome challenges such as active site leaching, water by-product interference and catalyst stability for sustainable biofuel production. She enjoys hiking and gardening in her free time.

Kaushiki Arha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Politics of Anti-Rape Laws: A Comparative Analysis of Criminal Justice Systems in India and United States
Field of Study:	Political Science
Home Institution:	Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Rutgers University, NJ
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Kaushiki Arha is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has a master’s in political science from the same centre, and a bachelor’s from Lady Shri Ram College for Women, University of Delhi. She is interested in researching the intersection of gender, politics, and law. Her doctoral project explores the politics of rape law reform in India with a focus on the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013. Her work seeks to investigate how rape myths enter legal discourse and its political implications for women demanding a world without sexual violence.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Kaushiki is working with Prof. Vera Bergelson to develop a comparative analysis of the criminal justice systems in India and the United States of America with a focus on rape cases.

Arka Banerjee

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Reliable Simulation Paradigms for Big Data
Field of Study:	Mathematical Sciences
Home Institution:	Indian institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Minnesota, MN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Seven and a half months

Brief Bio:

Arka Banerjee is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Studying Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sample quality by computationally efficient estimation of the asymptotic covariance matrices in the multidimensional MCMC setup is the main focus of his doctoral thesis. He has published in reputed journals and has participated in and presented papers at national and international conferences.

Arka holds a bachelor’s and a master’s in statistics from the University of Calcutta. Before joining IIT Kanpur, he was a data analyst at Infosys Limited for a year where he worked on a financial modeling project that dealt with the prediction of default payments in a banking institution.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Minnesota, Arka is exploring the computationally efficient and optimized procedures in the estimation of asymptotic covariance matrices in MCMC for a better understanding of MCMC sample quality. During his grant period, he will be studying MCMC sample quality in a high dimensional setting. Arka enjoys travelling and cooking different culinary dishes.

Shreya Chakraborty

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Identifying and Addressing Challenges in Finding Genetic Underpinnings of Human Cognition In Diverse Contexts
Field of Study:	Public Health
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Bengaluru, Karnataka
Host Institution:	University of Texas, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Seven months

Brief Bio:

Shreya Chakraborty is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru. Her doctoral thesis focuses on understanding genetic architecture of manifestations of neurodegenerative diseases, with a specific focus on human cognition, considering age-associated metabolic risks. She has publications in peer-reviewed international journals with high reach and has presented papers at national and international conferences. She is a recipient of the Prime Minister Research Fellowship from the Government of India, which funds her research at IISc Bangalore.

Shreya holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in statistics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata and the University of Calcutta. She received the South-East Asia Subsistence fellowship for securing the highest marks at the undergraduate level in her university. Before starting her doctoral studies, she worked as an analyst at Marketing Management Analytics, Ipsos Research Pvt. Ltd.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Shreya is focusing on building statistical models that enhance the translation of genetic risk prediction (polygenic risk portability) of cognitive decline across diverse contexts, taking underlying genomic architecture and interactions into account. Since polygenic risk score prediction has direct clinical utility, drawing context-specific predictions, would form a knowledge base for specific target genetic regions for accelerated cognitive decline during aging. Apart from research, she takes a great interest in participating and organizing cultural events, especially when they involve music. Shreya loves spending time with her friends and family, and also enjoys travelling and meeting people from various cultures.

Sinchan Chatterjee

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	A Study of Autistic Autobiographies
Field of Study:	Language/Literature/Linguistics
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of California, CA
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Sinchan Chatterjee is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s in English from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, and Jadavpur University respectively. As a Junior Research Fellow in the discipline of English, Sinchan analyzes narratives of neurodivergence with a special focus on autistic autobiographies.

Sinchan’s research has been published in journals like Didaskalia (funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland), SETU Pittsburgh, and the Mizoram University Journal of Literary and Cultural Studies, and as book chapters by Palgrave Macmillan (forthcoming) and SUNY Press. Additionally, he has also presented his work at many international and national conferences in CUNY, Indiana University, Bloomington, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kanpur, Rajasthan University, and Siliguri College. Sinchan’s creative works have been awarded, funded and published by the University of Toronto Press, WordIt Art Fund, Penguin Random House India, the University of Exeter Press, the International Poetry Digest, Avenel Press, and Writers Workshop.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of California, Berkley, CA, Sinchan is formulating a comparative framework for studying the modalities of representing autism in the Global North in contrast to those in the Global South, examining the underlying socio-political and cultural discourses which influence such representations. Employing theoretical frameworks from the interdisciplinary fields of autobiography studies, critical disability studies, phenomenology, crip theory, queer theory, and posthumanism, he seeks to explore how autistic narratives can destabilize ableist myths and dehumanizing stereotypes about autistic individuals. As a poet, rapper, drummer, photographer, and (part-time) stand-up comedian, Sinchan believes in preserving as many stories in as many ways as possible.

Swarnali Dey

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Deciphering Iron Homeostasis and its Possible Impact on Cadmium Tolerance in Rice Subjected to Iron Pulsing
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Cornell University, NY
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Swarnali Dey is a third year Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Botany, University of Calcutta. As a part of her master’s dissertation project, she developed a new seed invigoration technique that she likes to call “iron pulsing,” and thereafter she has been working on it. Her study mainly involves understanding the role of iron supplementation during rice seed germination and deciphering the molecular mechanism of “iron pulsing” induced growth enhancement in rice. She has published over ten research and review articles in reputed journals and presented her work at various national and international conferences.

Swarnali obtained her bachelor’s degree in botany from Bethune College, Kolkata, and her master’s degree from the Department of Botany, University of Calcutta. She had secured second position in her bachelor’s and first position in her master’s programs. She qualified CSIR-UGC NET examination in life sciences and secured an All-India Rank 1. She has been awarded the DST INSPIRE fellowship, DBT JRF, the prestigious CSIR Shyama Prasad Mukherjee fellowship, and the Raman Charpak fellowship (for six months in France) by CEFIPRA.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Swarnali is analyzing the potential of “iron pulsing” in minimizing cadmium accumulation in rice. Besides, she will be trying to understand the iron distribution and homeostasis in rice seeds subjected to “iron pulsing.” She aims to develop a user-friendly and affordable technique to enhance the yield and nutritional quality of rice plants to achieve food security. Swarnali is a travel enthusiast, and also fond of listening to music and cooking.

Madhushree Dutta

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Elucidating the Role of Chloroplast Proton Gradient Regulation 5 in Modulating Photosynthetic Electron Transport under High-Temperature Stress in Potato (Solanum Tuberosum L.)
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	CSIR- Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, Himachal Pradesh
Host Institution:	Purdue University, IN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Madhushree Dutta is a Ph.D. candidate at the CSIR-Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology, Palampur, India. She is dissecting complex gene regulatory networks underlying potato tuberization under high-temperature stress. In her doctoral thesis, she is implementing plant physiology, biochemistry, and molecular biology tools to investigate redox regulation in tuber development. Her key areas of research interest include plant stress physiology, climate change biology, and epigenomics. So far, she has published in reputed journals and participated in several science outreach events to communicate science to a broader audience.

Madhushree obtained her master’s degree in botany from the University of Calcutta. Her dissertation was on understanding the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in rice cultivars under arsenic stress. Thereafter, she worked as a project scholar focusing on the utilization of brassica seed meal as a bioherbicide for weed management in wheat. Madhushree devotes time to teaching research aspirants through social media platforms, using smart strategies to make learning more interesting. Madhushree is a recipient of honorary awards including, the Max-Planck Gesellschaft Travel award, Dr. Parimal Kumar Roy Memorial award, and Dr. Ramendra Krishna Sarkar Memorial award for her excellent academic and research projects.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, Madhushree is exploring how the PGR5-dependent cyclic electron transport pathway operates under high-temperature stress to protect the photosynthetic apparatus of potatoes, translating into physiological fitness and improved tuber yield to ensure global food security.

Shankar Gugoloth

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	‘The sky is the Limit’: Education, Aspirations, and Policymaking in Telangana, India
Field of Study:	Anthropology
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	University of Massachusetts, MA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Shankar Gugoloth is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. He completed his master’s in political science from the University of Hyderabad, Telangana, and his bachelor’s in technology in production engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli, Tamilnadu. Shankar’s research interests include youth studies, education, youth aspirations, and politics. His work also elucidates the concept of “becoming” and the aspirations of marginalised youth through the idea of SWAEROS. In the past, Shankar held a senior tech associate position at the Bank of America, Hyderabad, for three years. His passion for social science led him to move from engineering to social science. He has written blogposts on various websites and presented his works at several national and international conferences.

Shankar’s doctoral thesis explores the question of the construction and cultivation of various identities within the single social category SWAEROS/ “The Society” students. He looks at aspiration formations among Dalit and tribal college-going youth (boys and girls) in Telangana, particularly among students enrolled in the Telangana Social Welfare Educational Institute Society (TSWREIS) schools in southern India. His doctoral work is ethnographic and uses visual ethnography to understand youth aspirations. TSWREIS is a state government-funded group of residential educational institutions for Dalit and tribal students in the state of Telangana.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Shankar is engaging with some of the alumni of TSWREIS, to gain valuable insights into the experiences of marginalized students from the “Society” schools studying or working in the U.S. This will help him to explore the role of TSWREIS in shaping aspirations of marginalized communities, and collaboratively write and interpret an ethnographic account of youth aspirations and state engagement with the marginalized community.

Sebin Joseph Sebastian

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Probing Collective Spin Excitations in Trillium Lattice Antiferromagnets: NMR Studies of Potential Spin Liquid Behaviour
Field of Study:	Physics
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	Iowa State University, IA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Sebin Joseph Sebastian is a Ph.D. candidate at the School of Physics, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Kerala. His research focuses on the captivating domain of quantum magnetism, precisely unravelling novel magnetic phases, notably spin liquids in frustrated magnets.

A recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) from the Government of India, Sebin has demonstrated exceptional academic prowess, reflected in noteworthy publications in esteemed journals. He has participated in national and international conferences and webinars, including the 2023 PMRF symposium where his work was highlighted, demonstrating his commitment to advancing the field. His presentation earned him the Best Poster award in the broad field of physics.

Starting his academic journey with a bachelor’s degree in physics from St. Berchmans College, Kottayam, Sebin seamlessly transitioned into an integrated Ph.D. (MS + Ph.D.) program at IISER Thiruvananthapuram. He is involved in teaching, especially offering coaching sessions to CSIR aspirants in and outside IISER. He showcased his versatility as a trained badminton player, securing the silver medal at the Inter-IISER Sports Meet in 2023 for badminton while serving as the men’s team captain

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Iowa State University, Ames, IA, Sebin exploring spin liquid signatures in trillium lattice antiferromagnets using nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. His research aims to shed light on these exotic magnetic phases, potentially contributing to the development of a robust platform for fault-tolerant quantum computation. His interests include exploring diverse cuisines and cultures, aligning with his passion for travel, music, and playing musical instruments.

Avinash Kumar Pandey

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Numerical modeling and design of an energy-harvesting device based on the flow-induced vibrations of flexible/rigid bodies
Field of Study:	Energy Studies
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	Johns Hopkins University, MD
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Avinash Kumar Pandey is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His doctoral work focuses on numerical modeling and studying the underlying physics of flow-induced vibrations of flexible/rigid bodies. As a child he would observe leaves swaying on the branches of trees and his country’s national flag fluttering in the wind. These later inspired him to work in his field of study. He has published papers in reputed journals and has participated in various national and international conferences and webinars.

Avinash holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from LNCT Bhopal, and a master’s in computational mechanics from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. He has always been a meritorious student and has won numerous awards. His experience also includes working as a senior engineer at Larsen & Toubro Limited, Vadodara, Gujarat, performing the stress analysis of critical (high temperature and pressure) pipelines in a refinery.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, Avinash is developing a fully coupled fluid-structure-electric interaction-based numerical model that can be used to estimate the actual energy output from flow-induced vibrations (FIV) of rigid/ flexible plates. He aims to design FIV-based energy-harvesting devices suitable for inaccessible areas like deep oceans. As a student of mechanical engineering, he likes to learn about new car/ bike technologies. He also likes to play badminton and go for runs. He is fond of travelling, exploring new places, and learning about people of different cultures.

Anna Lynn Tom

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	A Comparative Study of Feminist Interventions in India and the West: Historicising Decolonial Avant-Garde Art through Glocal Encounters
Field of Study:	Women’s and Gender Studies
Home Institution:	The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	Rutgers University, NJ
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Anna Lynn Tom is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Comparative Literature and India Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She received the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) doctoral research fellowship in 2022 for her study on interventional feminist practices in contemporary visual art in India. Previously, she was as an assistant professor in English at St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru. She completed her master’s from EFL University, Hyderabad, focusing in Indian and world literatures.

Anna has published critical writing on gender, art and culture on Indian online platforms such as The Chakkar, Live Wire, Catharsis, Articulate, and ASAP Art Connect. She has also published book chapters and academic papers in research journals. She has presented her ongoing work on the presence of women and queer artists in the contemporary Indian art scene at national and international conferences. Through her doctoral research, Anna aims to understand different methods of reading feminist art of the Indian contemporary through bodily mediated encounters within the decolonial avant-garde.

As a Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Anna is conducting a comparative analysis of understanding feminist interventions during the period of the women’s movements (roughly 1960 – 1990) in the U.S. and India through an exploration of the Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists. Anna is an avid consumer of fiction and cinema. She also practices experimental forms of writing and photography.

Prashant Mahajan

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Assessing the Strength of Perceived Predation Risk by Mesocarnivores from Large Predators
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Washington, WA
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Prashant Mahajan is a Ph.D. candidate at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Uttar Pradesh. He recently joined the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) as a Scientist-C. He has previously been a recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF). He completed his BSc in zoology in 2016 from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, and MSc in wildlife sciences from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). His doctoral work focusses on understanding the ecology of mesocarnivores in the Gir Protected Area, Gujarat.

Over the years Prashant’s focus has been on studying the ecology of large mammals in India, with a particular emphasis on wolf, tiger, leopard, elephant, and rhesus macaque. He was a part of the All-India Tiger Estimation Project (AITE) at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII). He has presented his work in various national and international conferences and has also communicated his research findings through peer-reviewed and popular articles.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, Prashant is trying to integrate insights from the U.S. ecosystem to add to the understanding of the mesocarnivores in India. He is specifically investigating the strength of interactions between large carnivores and mesocarnivores and how this governs the behavioural responses of the latter to the perceived predation risk. By undertaking this research, he aims to expand the understanding of carnivore ecology in India, particularly in relation to their behavioural aspects.

Zehra Mahdi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Infrastructure Provision, Informal Institutions and Legitimacy in Informal Settlements: Case of Jamia Nagar, Delhi, India
Field of Study:	Urban and Regional Planning
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Rutgers University, NJ
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Zehra Mahdi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal. Her doctoral research focuses on neighborhood change in informal settlements that are predominantly inhabited by the Muslim community and influenced by the presence of anchor institutions. She employs visual geography along with oral research traditions to examine internal heterogeneity, particularly through the built environment, and capture residents’ perceptions and experiences.

Zehra holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi and a master’s degree in city planning from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal. She is a licensed architect and has worked on design and construction of public housing and healthcare infrastructure projects in the past.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Zehra is exploring the role of infrastructural provision in gaining legitimacy in informal settlements. Her research will highlight the role of informal institutions, social capital and collective action in establishing channels of tacit understanding between the State and non-State actors. The study strives to contribute to the knowledge of the dynamics of informal settlements in the Global South. Zehra loves cycling, and enjoys curating cycling trails for exploration of heritage, food and art in cities.

Nilotpal Majumder

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	3D bioprinting of self-assembled organoids for macroscale tissue morphogenesis
Field of Study:	Bioengineering
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Tufts University, MA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Nilotpal Majumder is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He is currently designing a biomimetic chemically modified silk fibroin gelatin bioink for 3D bioprinting of cartilage tissue. His doctoral thesis primarily focuses on modulating the associated chondrogenic signalling pathways using various small-molecule modulators to develop phenotypically stable articular cartilage grafts. He has publications in reputed journals like Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Healthcare Materials, and ACS Applied Material & Interfaces.

Nilotpal holds a BTech-MTech dual degree in biotechnology from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. He worked on a project funded by the government of India (BIRAC) as a project engineer to develop an automated electromagnetic wave-based tissue processing device.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Tufts University, Medfor, MA, Nilotpal is exploring various external cues (microgravity, magnetism) to induce cellular assembly within the 3D bio-printed constructs. The main objective of his research will be to develop a 3D bio-printed macroscale organoid that can closely recapitulate the native human tissue microarchitecture and physiology. In his free time, he enjoys reading non-fiction, watching sci-fi movies and television series, and exploring historical places.

Sayari Misra

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Harnessing Connections: Exploring the Role of Social Relationships in Addressing Water-resource Stress through Perspectives from the Indian Sundarbans
Field of Study:	Sociology
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jammu, Jammu, Jammu and Kashmir
Host Institution:	University of Minnesota, MN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Sayari Misra is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), IIT Jammu. She completed her graduation in microbiology from Scottish Church College, Kolkata. After that, she did her post-graduation in social work (MSW) from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur and was awarded the institute gold medal for her academic performance. She has worked with Dr. S. Y. Quraishi (former Chief Election Commissioner of India) on his book on family planning titled The Population Myth as his research associate. Her research interests include themes of social stratification and inequality, social networks, and access to water and sanitation. Her ongoing doctoral study primarily focuses on mapping the accessibility to water resources and the social network structure of the rural communities of the Indian Sundarbans.

During extensive field visits in various remote locations in West Bengal, Sayari was drawn to the complex problem of climate-induced water-resource stress and associated vulnerabilities in resource-dependent communities like the Sundarbans. One key insight gained from her research is the pivotal role of social networks in influencing the accessibility of resources and mitigating vulnerabilities, especially among marginalized groups. However, the mechanism and importance of these social relationships in the context of water resource stress remain elusive.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Sayari is aiming to bridge the aforementioned knowledge gap by elucidating the nuanced interplay between social networks and water resource stress, particularly within marginalized communities.

Sadaf Nausheen

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Belonging to the Cosmopolitan: Mobilities, Muslim Women and Urban Public Space
Field of Study:	Womens and Gender Studies
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	Brandeis University, MA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Sadaf Nausheen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. She completed her MA in women’s studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and BA in political science from the University of Delhi. Such training has given her an interdisciplinary background which is reflected in her doctoral work that sits at the intersection of gender studies and urban studies. As an ethnographic study, her research focuses on narratives of Muslim women in understanding gendered experience of urban public space.

Nausheen has presented her work at several national and international conferences. She has also co-authored and published in a peer-reviewed international journal and other online fora. Sadaf has been a co-recipient of the Centenary Decade Undergraduate Research Grant funded by Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Additionally, she undertook funded research as part of the Sponsored Studies Project by the Indian Association for Women’s Studies that allowed her to imbibe practices of reflexivity and empathy in doing qualitative work. Her doctoral research looks at the experiences of urban spaces by analysing the exclusions, claim making processes, and belongingness of Muslim women in Hyderabad, India. Focusing on how Muslim women navigate their access to public space in the city, the research attempts to mainstream marginalised voices in theorising women’s experiences. Furthermore, it takes into account the differences within the category of the ‘Muslim woman’ in order to bring out a heterogeneous understanding of the same.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Sadaf is working on the methodological and analytical aspects of her Ph.D. project, while analysing the scope of intersectionality through various frameworks of study.

Wasim Niyaz Munshi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	A Phase-Field Approach for Modelling Subsurface Fracture Propagation in Three Dimensions.
Field of Study:	Earth Sciences
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Host Institution:	Colorado State University, CO
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Wasim Niyaz Munshi obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, in 2021. He then joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to pursue an integrated MS + Ph.D. in civil engineering. His doctoral thesis focuses on developing a robust phase-field model for fracture propagation. The developed model will leverage parallel computing on distributed memory environments and adaptive mesh refinement to offset the high computational costs.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Colorado State University, Boulder, CO, Wasim is addressing the key limitation of the phase-field method, which is its high computational cost. The eventual outcome of this research will result in a unique 3D subsurface fracture propagation capability that addresses a key bottleneck for several industrial applications such as geothermal energy, shale gas exploration, and composites. Wasim has presented his initial work at reputed conferences like CFRAC 2023 and ISTAM 2023. In addition to several high-impact research publications, this research will also facilitate long-term collaborations between the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the host laboratory in the U.S. in a strategic area of national importance for both nations.

Coming from the picturesque valley of Kashmir, Wasim has a deep appreciation for nature. He loves spending time in nature and is particularly enthusiastic about hiking and camping. He enjoys travelling to new places and is very keen to learn about different cultures.

Saptarshi Saha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Causality-inspired Deep Active Learning
Field of Study:	Computer Science
Home Institution:	Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, West Bengal
Host Institution:	University at Buffalo, NY
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

Saptarshi Saha is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His doctoral research is focused on integrating causality into deep learning frameworks to enhance their utility. Beyond his immediate thesis goals, Saptarshi envisions a broader research trajectory aimed at utilizing deep learning for a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. His aim is to address various challenges such as improving the robustness, explainability, and interpretability of models, addressing issues with limited control over generative models, enhancing generalization performance under varying data distributions, dealing with learning using limited labelled data, promoting fairness in decision-making systems, and more. Saptarshi’s scholarly contributions extend to renowned journals such as TMLR and prominent conferences like ICLR. He has showcased his work at various research fora, such as Amazon Research Day 2023 and the Machine Learning Summer School in Okinawa, 2024.

Saptarshi holds a BS-MS dual degree in mathematics from IISER Kolkata. Throughout his BS-MS studies (2015–2020), he was a recipient of the INSPIRE fellowship from DST, Government of India.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Saptarshi is trying to utilize causal knowledge and principles to assess data quality and make informed decisions (in the context of learning with not enough data) regarding samples that need to be labelled (from the large unlabelled dataset) rather than selecting them randomly. He is primarily working on the challenge of efficiently selecting the most relevant samples for labelling while considering budget constraints. This challenge holds excellent relevance not only in academic research but also within the AI industry. Saptarshi is an avid nature photographer and finds solace in the wilderness. His interests extend to culinary adventures, globetrotting, and engaging with diverse cultures. His leisure activities also include playing football and cricket.

Kirti Saluja

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	The heart-brain connection in epilepsy: Investigating clinical, cognitive implications and potential biomarkers
Field of Study:	Neuroscience
Home Institution:	National Brain Research Centre, Gurgaon, Haryana
Host Institution:	Loma Linda University, CA
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Kirti Saluja is a Ph.D. candidate at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), Haryana. Her Ph.D. research focuses on investigating the interaction between the heart and the brain in aging individuals and those with epilepsy, involving the utilization of cognitive experiments, multimodal neuroimaging, and a data-driven approach. She has presented her research at various national and international conferences and workshops.

Before pursuing her Ph.D., Kirti completed her BSc in biochemistry from the University of Delhi, and MSc in neuroscience from the National Brain Research Centre. During this period, she actively participated in an innovation project led by the University of Delhi in collaboration with IGIB, focusing on utilizing zebrafish as a biosensor for assessing the water quality of the river Yamuna in the Delhi-NCT region. Additionally, she contributed as a teaching assistant at the Neuromatch Academy for their computational neuroscience course.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, Kirti will is collaborating with Dr. Mohammad Dastjerdi, aiming to elucidate the connectivity between the heart and the brain in epileptic patients using stereo encephalography (sEEG) as the neuroimaging technique. This endeavor is expected to aid in comprehending mechanisms underlying the development of cognitive and/ or cardiovascular comorbidities in epileptic patients, potentially opening avenues for utilizing cardiac signals in predicting seizure onset. Kirti enjoys hiking, trekking, creating science-related comics, and engaging with diverse individuals.

Harish Sankar Aghila

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	In-Network Security using Programmable Data Planes
Field of Study:	Computer Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	The University of Texas, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Harish S A is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. The broader domains encompassing his research interests include networks, systems, and security. His current research explores the security implications of in-network systems that leverage cutting-edge technologies like software-defined networks and programmable data planes.

Harish is a recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) awarded by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. As a part of his doctoral research, he actively engaged in a security project alongside ASEAN countries and participated in their student exchange program. He published research papers and presented his work at reputed international venues. Additionally, he has received the notable SIGCOMM travel grant award, among many others.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the National Institute of Technology Puducherry, during which time he interned with the UMR TETIS Joint Research Unit in Montpellier, France. He holds a master’s degree in computer engineering (cyber security) from the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Texas, Austin, TX, Harish is examining to secure data-driven, in-network systems built on high-speed programmable data planes against adversarial inputs. His vision is to bolster the resilience of next-generation computer networks against security threats. Harish teaches undergraduate students about network security. He enjoys road trips and chess.

Apoorva Singh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Unravelling the Evolution in Defects and Recombination Mechanisms in Perovskite Solar Cells at different stages of Degradation through Spectroscopic Procedures
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, Karnataka
Host Institution:	University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Apoorva Singh is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. His doctoral thesis focuses on understanding the charge transport and degradation mechanisms in perovskite based solar cells and devices incorporating device fabrication and advanced electrical, optical and materials characterizations. Apoorva has published academic papers and presented his work at various national and international conferences. He has collaborated with prominent international research groups and research facilities including ones at the University of Oxford and Soleil French-National Synchrotron Facility.

Apoorva holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, and a master’s degree in engineering by research from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru. After completing his master’s from JNCASR and prior to joining the Ph.D. program at IISc, Apoorva served as a senior project associate at the National Centre for Flexible Electronics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Apoorva is studying perovskite solar cells, investigating the evolution in defects and recombination mechanisms at different stages of degradation through spectroscopic procedures. The insights gained from his research will contribute to achieving optimal device performance and stability in the field. Apoorva actively organizes and takes on leadership roles in various academic and cultural activities. He is a music enthusiast, with skill in live mixing, and he also enjoys reading, playing chess, and exploring new places.

Asad Tariq

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Politician’s Religious Identity and Minority Targeted Public Good Provision
Field of Study:	Economics
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Brown University, RI
Grant Start Month:	December 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Asad Tariq is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He completed his MA in economics with distinction from Jamia Millia Islamia, and BA from the University of Allahabad. His research interest lies at the intersection of development economics, politics, and religion. His work aims to document the discrimination against marginalised groups in India and investigate possible policy measures that aid their upliftment and development.

During his Ph.D., he has been awarded the Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship in 2023 which sponsored 12 months of research at the Imperial College London. He is also a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship by the University Grants Commission, India. He has presented his work at multiple national and international conferences. He has also been a part of multiple research projects under the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research among others.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brown University, Providence, RI, Asad is evaluating the influence of Members of Legislative Assembly from religious minority backgrounds in India on the provision of public goods targeted towards minorities. He also hopes to compile a collection of essays employing econometric methods to illuminate the challenges faced by Indian marginalized groups. When he is not crunching numbers using econometric models, Asad can be found at a picket, savouring nihari-paya in the labyrinthine alleys of Purani Dilli and Okhla, or reading Allama Iqbal’s poetry.

Ashish Tiwari

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Public Administration
Home Institution:	Indian Police Service, Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	Harvard University, MA
Grant Start Month:	July 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

Ashish Tiwari graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, West Bengal with a BTech and MTech in computer science and engineering in 2007. A 2012 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, Ashish has held positions of ASP Jhansi, SP rural Varanasi, SP Mirzapur, SSP Etah, SP Jaunpur, SSP Ayodhya, Founder Commandant-Special Security Force (SSF), SP Election (Uttar Pradesh), and SSP Firozabad. He was recognized as one of the 40 promising global leaders in policing by the IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police, U.S.A.), who mentioned him in their ‘40 under 40’ list in 2022. He also received the Young Alumni Achiever award from IIT Kharagpur.

Ashish is passionate about SMART (simple and sensitive, moral and modern, accountable, reliable and responsive, trained and technical) policing. He believes in technology, innovations, and entrepreneurial government with a people-centric approach. He has launched multiple technology initiatives to realize SMART policing, which have been institutionalized at the state level and have impacted millions of citizens. He is also a member of various committees, and has been a keynote speaker at many conferences on modernizing policing using technology. To empower women, Ashish has constituted a ‘green group’ of rural women to fight problems of drugs, alcohol, gambling, and domestic violence in various districts. Leveraging technology, under ‘Operation Smile’ in west Uttar Pradesh, Ashish has reunited hundreds of missing children and victims of child trafficking with their families. His innovative strategies in community policing, countering fake news, and digital governance have received public and professional appreciation and widespread media coverage. Ashish has received numerous accolades, including the FICCI smart police officer award, the SKOCH award, the gFiles governance award, triple DGP Commendation (silver, gold, and platinum) discs, and the State Award for Best Electoral Practices.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Ashish is engaged in developing innovative solutions for smart governance and smart policing at the intersection of technology, security, and development. He intends to work at both the federal and the state level to apply new technologies in security and governance.

Soumyabrata Chakraborty

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Soumyabrata Chakraborty is serving as the registrar of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, a leading private university recognized as an “Institution of Eminence” by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. As an academic administrator he has also served as the founding registrar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, and as the chief executive (Administration and Finance) of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata. Prof. Chakraborty is actively involved in international collaborations and is a signatory of the institute in Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) executed with foreign universities.

As a civil engineer, Prof. Chakraborty has industrial and combat engineering experience having worked at Tata Steel and later in the Indian Army. He made significant contributions to counter insurgency operations and led infrastructure projects, including bridge and road construction in India and Bhutan, housing societies and habitat development. His recent international academic engagements include being a speaker at the international seminar on “Space, Time, Civilization” in Egypt (October, 2023), participating in the Annual Legal Meet of the Aditya Birla Group in Bangkok (December, 2023), and participating in the government’s ‘Study in India’ mission in Bangladesh (February 2024).

Dinesh Kumar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Gurugram University, Gurugram, Haryana
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Dinesh Kumar, recipient of the prestigious Homi J. Bhabha Memorial Award from the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi, is presently working as the vice-chancellor of Gurugram University, Gurugram. Prior to joining Gurugram University, he has worked as vice-chancellor of J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad between 2015 and 2021. He is an eminent academician, ardent researcher and able administrator, known for his leadership roles which span over 38 years. He obtained his master’s and PhD degrees from Cambridge University.

He was also conferred with the ‘Most Eminent Vice Chancellor Award’ by the All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties & Social Justice (AICHLS), and the ‘Rank Bandhu Shiksha Shiromani Samman’ for commendable contribution in the field of education. He was elected as president of the Section of Materials Science of the Indian Science Congress Association for the session 2017-2018.

He is a widely travelled person, and has been to France, Italy, Germany, Austria, England, USA, Russia, Australia, Spain, Taiwan and several other places for his research activities. He has published more than 140 research papers. A total of 22 students have already completed their PhD work under his guidance.

Alagu Manickavelu

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, Kerala
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Alagu Manickavelu is the director of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) at the Central University of Kerala. He holds a PhD in genetics and plant breeding, with specialized training in genomics and international agriculture from esteemed institutions in Japan and the CGIAR network. Since 2016, Prof. Manickavelu has been serving in various administrative capacities at the Central University of Kerala. His roles have included convenor of the International Linkage Committee, Fulbright campus representative, dean of Students’ Welfare, and head of the Department of Genomic Science. His leadership and dedication have significantly contributed to the university’s growth and international collaborations. Prof. Manickavelu’s academic journey includes a prestigious fellowship for post-doctoral research in Japan. He has successfully led numerous national and international research projects, guiding students from India and other developing countries such as Afghanistan, Brazil, and Paraguay. His scholarly contributions include 35 research articles, which have been presented at various national and international conferences. As the director of IQAC, Prof. Manickavelu is committed to positioning the Central University of Kerala on the global academic stage. His vision involves developing a robust model for international education, enhancing the university’s global engagement and reputation.

Swati Mujumdar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Symbiosis Skills & Professional University, Pune, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Dr. Swati Mujumdar is an international skill development and higher education expert. With over 20 years of professional experience in education and skill development, she has been advising governments at national and international levels on policy related matters in higher education, the blended education model, vocational education (TVET), and skill development. After years of research, Dr. Mujumdar has developed a unique ‘skill university’ model and under her able leadership, Symbiosis has established two skills universities namely Symbiosis Skills & Professional University, Pune and Symbiosis University of Applied Sciences, Indore. With an investment of over 100 million USD, the two universities have a strategic focus on developing skills and competencies in students, aligned to the needs of the industry. Dr. Mujumdar has participated in UNESCO deliberations on credit recognition and transfer systems in the Asia-Pacific region. She was also invited by UNESCO to Shenzhen to participate in regional consultation on ICT-driven innovation in higher education. She was appointed as a member of B20 taskforce on the future of work, mobility and skilling. With a focus on equity and inclusion, she has successfully spearheaded several projects on training underprivileged girls in STEM-education, skilling of unemployed youth in future skills, and capacity building of teachers/ trainers, and has, thereby, created opportunities for employment for thousands.

Swati Pal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Swati Pal, professor and principal, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, has been a Charles Wallace scholar and the first Asian awardee of the John McGrath theatre studies scholarship. Author of several books on theatre, creative and academic writing, her newspaper articles articulate her views on education. Her areas of research interest include performance studies and cultural history. She translates from Hindi to English. She writes poetry and her poems appear in several anthologies. She also has a collection titled In Absentia, and an edited volume called Living on. She is the vice-chair of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. She is the Delhi state-chair for the G100 wing for World Peace of the Women Economic Forum. She has been the recipient of several awards such as a Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution in the area of educational administration and planning besides gender development by Women’s Agency for Generating Employment (WAGE) in 2017; Exceptional Women of Excellence in Academia, 2017 Award by the All Ladies League and Women Economic Forum; the 34th Dr. S Radhakrishnan Memorial National Teacher Award in 2018; Esteemed Jury Award by COAE International in 2023; and the Best Principal Award by National Edu Trust of India for the year 2023-24 for commitment to integrating environmental education into teaching practices.

Sanjay Pratap Singh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	The Assam Royal Global University, Guwahati, Assam
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Sanjay Pratap Singh (PhD, MBA, MSc in geology, LLB, qualified CSIR-UGC NET in geology, and UGC-NET in management) has worked as JRF, SRF and lecturer in the Department of Geology, University of Lucknow. He was director of the Sherwood College of Management, and vice-chairman of the Sherwood Group. He was also director of the Royal Group of Institutions, Guwahati, and later served in the Amity Group as senior vice-president and founder vice-chancellor of Amity University, Chhattisgarh. He is an active member of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) – India chapter and had been conferred with the ‘Ambassador for Peace’ award by UPF – South Korea. He is the Global Vice President of Sun Moon University, South Korea. He is also a member of the Equivalence Committee and Governing Council of Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

He has been serving as vice-chancellor of the Assam Royal Global University for the last eight years. He launched the university with 13 schools that offered 55 courses in the first year itself, and currently has a total of 27 schools and over 130 programmes. The university has 7000 students, including 300 PhD scholars, and has been recognized as host institute/ business incubator by MSME, Government of India. The university has signed over 200 MoUs so far with other institutes for cross-cultural exposure.

Soumini Raja

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Avani Institute of Design, Kozhikode, Kerala
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Soumini Raja is professor and head of the Department of Architecture at Avani Institute of Design, Kerala, and chairperson of the Board of Studies in Design at the University of Calicut. With over a decade of academic experience, she views design as an ongoing process involving dialogue and negotiation between society, culture, and the environment. She co-founded Studio Commune, and serves as its director of research. Prof. Raja holds an undergraduate degree in architecture from the College of Engineering, Trivandrum, and a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from CEPT University, Ahmedabad. Her doctoral research at CEPT University addressed human vulnerabilities to disasters in coastal regions using a human-nature co-evolutionary framework. She has received several prestigious awards, including the Council of Architecture Training and Research Centre Urban Studio Research Project Award (2022), the Indian Climate Research Network Research Award (2014), the Vastu-Shilpa Foundation Award (2008), and the Eklavya Education Foundation Scholarship of Excellence (2008). Prof. Raja has published extensively in national and international peer-reviewed journals and conferences. She collaborates with various educational institutions, NGOs, and governmental agencies in India. Additionally, she is a canine lover and a trained Kathakali artist.

Sandip Rameshchandra Vasant

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Navrachana University, Vadodara, Gujarat
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Sandip Rameshchandra Vasant is professor in computer science and engineering at the School of Engineering and Technology, and registrar at Navrachana University (NUV). He holds a PhD in computer science, and has over 20 years of experience in teaching, research, and academic and general administration in higher education. Prior to joining NUV, he was the registrar at Anant National University, Ahmedabad. He was instrumental in setting up systems, processes and policies of the university for effective and solution-oriented administration. Preceding his stint at Anant National University, he was heading the Office of the Academic Registrar at Ahmedabad University. He was responsible for strategic academic administration (planning and execution of academic processes), ensuring statutory compliances with UGC and the Government of Gujarat rules and guidelines, writing academic policies, designing the course catalogue, managing university courses, managing students’ life cycle at the university, and automation of academic processes for the Office of the Academic Registrar. He has taught courses such as object-oriented programming, open-source technology and software engineering at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Prof. Vasant has published over 15 research papers in national and international journals of repute, and has been instrumental in volunteering at various educational seminars and conferences. He has been invited as an expert on information technology to deliver sessions on ‘Effective Classroom Teaching and Learning using Information and Communication Technology’ to guide the trainers. Prof. Vasant has also served as vice-chairman and chairman at the Computer Society of India, Ahmedabad chapter, for the period of 2016-2017 and 2017-2018.

Madhushree Sekher

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Tata Institute for Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Prof. Madhushree Sekher is at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). She is known internationally for her interdisciplinary research, being a recipient of the Australian Research Council (Discovery) grant, DFAT-Australia Awards fellowship, and grants from International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI), ICSSR-Major Project grant, and the UGC-UKIERI Thematic Partnership Award. She represents TISS from India in a multi-university collaborative teaching program being led by Cornell University on ‘food-energy-water nexus.’ She is associated with an international research consortium on ethnic power relations which was funded by the Swiss Development Council and the Swiss National Science Foundation. She has been a visiting faculty at IFPRI-Washington, the University of Hohenheim-Stuttgart (Germany), the University of Sydney (Australia), and the Tata-Cornell Institute, Cornell University. She coordinated and led two training programmes for the Leadership for Academicians Program (LEAP) from TISS for the Ministry of Education, Government of India (2019, 2020), partnering with UPenn-GSE, Philadelphia. She has authored many research articles and books, including Feeding India: Livelihoods, Entitlements and Capabilities (Earthscan, 2013), Governance and Governed (Springer, 2017), and Including the Excluded in South Asia (Springer, 2019). She has a PhD in political science, and was a recipient of the World Bank Robert S. McNamara fellowship for post-doctoral research.

Neena Sinha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two weeks

Brief Bio:

Dr. Neena Sinha is a professor at the University School of Management Studies, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. She has served as the dean of the University School of Management Studies, and has held numerous administrative roles, including director of development. She is currently the co-chairperson for accreditation and ranking for the university. She has been a visiting research scholar at Kobe University, Japan. Her experience there, along with teaching Slovakian students in 2012, provided unique insights into intercultural communication and cross-border partnerships.

Dr. Sinha has co-authored several journal publications with international researchers. She has presented her research at conferences, including the University of Manchester, UK, and the ITU Symposia on ICTs and climate change in London. In 2017, she was invited to conduct a masterclass on “Environment Law to Private Environmental Governance: Integrating Economics, Ecology, and Law” at an international conference at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. Dr. Sinha is a member of the Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Management. She is regularly invited by the state-owned broadcaster Rajya Sabha TV as an expert on issues of educational administration, including discussions on the internationalization of higher education and women empowerment in higher education.

Abhiram Giri Sankar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Urban and Regional Planning
Home Institution:	Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand
Host Institution:	Cornell University, NY
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two years

Brief Bio:

Abhiram Giri Sankar is an IAS officer by profession. He completed his B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Kerala. He secured fourth rank in the all-India Civil Services Examination, 2010 and joined the Karnataka cadre. He is a passionate birdwatcher and volunteers actively towards eBird, a global citizen science initiative of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Abhiram currently serves as Deputy Director at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Government of India, Mussoorie, where he trains and mentors civil servants. In his public service career spanning over a decade, he has served in various capacities in the state of Karnataka, including Deputy Commissioner, CEO Zilla Panchayat, among others. This experience deepened his understanding of ground-level realities of development administration and exposed him to a wide range of issues.

Under his leadership, Mysuru district won national awards for the Cleanest Medium City, fifth overall cleanest city in India, and a 5-Star Rating for Garbage Free Cities. Mr. Abhiram also earned appreciation of the Government of Karnataka for his contributions towards the COVID-19 pandemic response as well as for flood relief efforts.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellowship, Abhiram is studying regional planning at Cornell University, where he aspires to gain deep insights into effective urban planning and policy-making necessary to transform Indian cities into livable, equitable, and resilient entities. After completing his fellowship, he aims to find sustainable solutions through a multi-stakeholder approach and be a change-maker public servant.

Amartya Kanjilal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	International Legal Studies
Home Institution:	Independent Lawyer, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Michigan, MI
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

Amartya Kanjilal graduated from the Faculty of Law, Delhi University in 2013. Since then, he has been engaged in human rights and criminal law litigation and research. He has worked as a judicial clerk in the Delhi High Court and practiced as a criminal defense lawyer in various courts in Delhi. He also worked at Project 39A, where he provided legal representation to death-sentenced prisoners in the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts. He has researched and written extensively on issues of criminal and constitutional law, with a special focus on capital punishment jurisprudence and gender law reform.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Amartya is studying the administration of criminal justice in the U.S., concentrating on legal aid mechanisms. He hopes to continue building his practice in the future, focusing on criminal justice and legal aid. He also hopes to teach seminar courses at law universities in the future.

Praavita Kashyap

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	International Legal Studies
Home Institution:	Independent Lawyer, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Columbia University, NY
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

Praavita Kashyap is a practicing advocate in New Delhi, specializing in criminal law. She represents the defense and complainants across various subject areas including criminal defamation, homicidal crimes, and sexual violence, as well as individuals charged under India’s anti-terrorism laws. She has worked on several trials of public significance.

For the last decade, Praavita has been associated with social movements and campaigns. Her experience working with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan on the Right to Information and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act fostered her understanding of transformative, participatory approaches to drafting law. Around 2015, she documented constitutional cases regarding the impact of technological interventions in welfare. In 2017, she was instrumental in establishing a campaign critiquing India’s unique biometric identification project. She then founded the ‘Article 21 Trust’ to work on issues at the intersection of welfare and technology.

Praavita holds an LLB from Delhi University, a BA (Hons.) in philosophy from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University, and an MA in human rights from Sciences Po, Paris. Her studies are motivated by her commitment to social justice.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Praavita is studying data governance law, criminal procedure, and constitutional rights, and learn strategies from the rich history of movement lawyering in the US. This will strengthen her work with social movements to bridge the disjunct between technology policy, the law and lived experiences of the marginalized. Praavita plans to return to India to continue her independent litigation practice and shape creative, participatory policy in India.

Ranjit Kumar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Environmental Science/ Studies
Home Institution:	Government of India, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Yale University, CT
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two years

Brief Bio:

Ranjit Kumar, a nautical science graduate, has extensive experience of sailing. He has traveled around the world as a merchant navy officer, learning about the complexity and diversity of the marine environment and picking up a wide array of survival skills. For his leadership and managerial skills, he was appointed as chief cadet captain. As a member of Indian Administrative Service (IAS), he has been dealing with critical interventions in development and regulatory administration for the past 16 years. For his all-round performance, he was awarded best ‘District Collector’ by the Government of Maharashtra.

As the district collector of Gadchiroli, an area severely affected by left wing extremism, Ranjit has laid extra emphasis on socio-economic development to further the cause of peace. For his innovative approach and effective contribution, he has been awarded the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration.

Currently, as director of National Jal Jeevan Mission, Ranjit is engaged in policy formulation and implementation of the National Jal Jeevan Mission, one of the largest programs in the world, related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6). He believes inclusive and rapid economic development with ecological sustainability is a major challenge. A study of environmental management and policy analysis will equip him with the necessary knowledge and skills to work on this challenge and help improve the quality of life of millions of citizens. Ranjit is a marathon runner, an excellent swimmer, and a sports enthusiast.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Ranjit hopes to gain valuable cross-cultural exposure, a chance to learn from diverse professionals, and an opportunity to befriend multi-talented individuals.

Lakshmi Priya Manirangu Sobhana

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Public Health
Home Institution:	Government of Assam, Guwahati, Assam
Host Institution:	Harvard University, MA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

M.S. Lakshmi Priya, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), hails from the state of Kerala, and is a medical doctor by training. She is a recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Administration for her project Sampoorna which helped reduce childhood malnutrition by 95.6% in the district of Bongaigaon in Assam where she worked as district collector. The project is based on the concept of ‘positive deviance’ and an innovation called ‘buddy mother’ model which is adopted in the national guidelines for combating malnutrition in the country.

Lakshmi Priya has been working in the state of Assam since 2015 in various capacities such as assistant collector in Jorhat, sub-collector in Bijni and Bilasipara, collector in Sivasagar and Bongaigaon, and as State Mission Director (MD) of National Health Mission (NHM). As MD, NHM, she has been instrumental in the reduction of maternal and child death rates in the state of Assam. She is known to be an upright officer who believes in participative governance and women empowerment. She also has the experience of working in the Ministry of Finance, Government of India. She is an accomplished Carnatic musician who has performed in over a hundred venues, including the Rashtrapathi Bhavan, and Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Lakshmi Priya is studying public health in the U.S., which will help her broaden her vision, and focus further on policy formulation and the smooth implementation of health-related administrative innovations. She believes her time in the U.S. will enable her to become a part of the larger global community working towards the betterment of humanity.

Siva Naga Pavani Ayinampudi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Higher Education Administration
Home Institution:	Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	Harvard University, MA
Grant Start Month:	July 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

Siva Naga Pavani Ayinampudi is a life scientist with a master’s and Ph.D. in animal biology from the University of Hyderabad. She holds a remarkable academic record, having received the Achievers Award three times and the Kiran Kumar gold medal in 2010. She is currently serving as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) with the Telangana Social Welfare Residential Educational Institutions Society (TSWREIS), Government of Telangana, overseeing 30 residential undergraduate institutions. Prior to this, she was a lecturer and taught zoology at the undergraduate level. In her role as OSD, she championed the efforts to improve the quality of education for around 30,000 young women from under-served communities in Telangana. Her leadership has transformed institutional practices, fostering international collaborations with renowned universities such as Harvard, John Hopkins, and the University of Toledo, along with partnerships with organizations like Launch Girls, United Way, and Nirmaan.

Under Pavani’s guidance, TSWREIS’s Department of Higher Education introduced pioneering programs, including a bachelor’s in pharmacy, agriculture, and unique courses like BSc in design and technology, BSc in bioinformatics, and French as a second language. She co-created the TSWREIS Research Council, promoting research engagement among students and staff, and is the convenor of the institution’s first international conference, BioMe 2023.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Pavani is deepening her understanding of higher education administration, learn best practices, and contribute to enhancing the landscape of higher education in India. She aspires to democratize education, and design customized frameworks for institutions enabling them to serve as catalysts in societal transformation.

Amrutha Sai Anju Kosuru

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Journalism and Mass Communication
Home Institution:	Independent Journalist, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
Host Institution:	New York University, New York
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two years

Brief Bio:

Amrutha Kosuru is an independent journalist from Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, presently stationed in Hyderabad, Telangana. In 2022, she worked as a fellow at the People’s Archive of Rural India, where she delved into multifaceted subjects such as agriculture, art and crafts, climate change, food, public policy, and gender through her insightful reporting in the rural regions of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

Recognized for her exceptional work, Amrutha was honored with a Jury Appreciation Citation at the Laadli Media and Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity in 2023. She received this recognition for her compelling article on the lives of widows of manual scavenging workers and the challenges they face. Specializing in rural and literary reportage, Amrutha is a firm believer in the transformative power of compelling storytelling.

Amrutha has more than three years of experience in ground reporting and editing for both print and digital media. She has previously worked with and written for The Hindu, The New Indian Express, and NewsMeter. She has a Post Graduate Diploma in journalism from the Asian College of Journalism.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Amrutha is working on her journalistic skills which will allow her to expand the scope of her reportage in India, and help her delve deeper into narrative journalism, serving as a powerful tool to address integral issues plaguing India.

Devanshu Sajlan

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	International Legal Studies
Home Institution:	Delhi Judicial Services, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Columbia University, NY
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	One year

Brief Bio:

Devanshu Sajlan, a judge by profession, is passionate about analyzing the interplay between law and the rights of marginalized groups in India. Officiating as a judge at Tis Hazari Courts since 2019, he has passed more than 200 judgments pertaining to diverse areas of law. His judgments dealing with contract law (non-compete clauses), defamation law, sexual crimes, and crimes against society have been reported by SCC Online, a leading law journal of India. He was also one of the first judges in New Delhi to record evidence through videoconferencing mode during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hailing from New Delhi, Devanshu studied law at National Law University, Delhi. He was awarded the Pandit Shri Girdhari Lal Salwan gold medal in 2014. After graduating, he started working at one of India’s leading corporate law firms, AZB & Partners, where he worked on multiple transactions with international institutions like the International Finance Corporation, American Tower Corporation, and Asian Development Bank. Thereafter, to pursue his passion for criminal litigation and human rights, he joined the chamber of Neeraj Kishan Kaul, Senior Advocate, and former Additional Solicitor General of India. Devanshu also joined the panel of Delhi Legal Services Authority in 2018 as an independent practitioner to help indigent litigants and undertrial prisoners.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Devanshu is studying the criminal justice courses dealing with issues of bail jurisprudence specifically faced by indigent prisoners. He feels this will enable him to find improved solutions to the plight of thousands of disenfranchised under-trial prisoners in India.

Utsav Shukla

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowships
Project Title:	N.A.
Field of Study:	Urban and Regional Planning
Home Institution:	Ministry of Railways, Guwahati, Assam
Host Institution:	University of California, CA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two years

Brief Bio:

Utsav Shukla, a civil servant of the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), works at the intersection of railroad network planning, operations, regional development and urban transport. He has been working for 10 years in northeast India, connecting habitations and nurturing opportunities for improving the living conditions of millions. Hailing from Varanasi, the spiritual center of India, and trained as a medical doctor at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Indore, Utsav has been instrumental in designing people-centric infrastructure, sustainably dovetailing into the eco-sensitive milieu of the region.

Over the last decade, he has headed operations and business verticals, providing policy inputs on freight rebates and cargo aggregation, giving small agro-producers of the region access to national and international markets. He was pivotal in planning, coordinating and executing rail connectivity projects to Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland. For the safe and successful operations of 232 Shramik specials (trains carrying stranded people) while resuscitating the supply chain of life-saving drugs and essential commodities in six northeastern states during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was awarded the National Railway Award 2021, the highest honor for any railway servant by the Minister of Railways, Government of India.

In his latest assignment at the Northeast Frontier Railway’s headquarters in Guwahati, Utsav influenced the operationalization of international connectivity links with Bangladesh and Nepal. Further, his commitment to wildlife conservation and sustainable development has institutionalized effective mitigation mechanisms along the elephant corridors in northeast India, reducing elephant deaths by 60%. Anchoring station redevelopment projects in Guwahati and New Jalpaiguri under the Amrit Bharat scheme, he is currently working on integrating the passenger and freight railway transit nodes with the urban transportation system.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Utsav is studying urban planning to gain insights into policies, technologies and institutions which can make cities more humane, livable and equitable. He intends to explore leadership roles and reforms in governance to bring about citizen engagement in delivering urban services.

Prakash Babu Kodali

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Examining quit behavior and utilization of tobacco cessation services in the United States and India
Field of Study:	Public Health
Home Institution:	Central University of Kerala, Kasaragod, Kerala
Host Institution:	University of California, San Francisco, CA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twelve months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Prakash Babu Kodali serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Central University of Kerala (CUK), Kasaragod. His research is primarily centered on the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCD), fortifying health systems, and promoting health. He has a keen interest in several areas, including tobacco control, healthcare financing, hypertension prevention and control, and digital health. Dr. Kodali has been an integral part of multidisciplinary research teams studying contemporary public health issues.

Dr. Kodali completed his Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Hyderabad, and M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. He was a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship in social medicine and community health, awarded by the University Grants Commission of India between 2015 and 2016. Dr. Kodali’s research portfolio includes the study of tobacco usage patterns in India, international comparisons of tobacco cessation behaviors, the impact of tobacco-control laws, and the efficacy of anti-tobacco health education strategies.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Kodali is investigating tobacco cessation among socio-economically vulnerable groups. His research combines nationally representative datasets, key informant interviews, and epidemiological approaches to develop a comprehensive framework for improving access to tobacco cessation services in the U.S. and India.

Siddharth Bhardwaj

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Effect of Personal and Environmental Factors on Gait and Balance control in Parkinson's patients
Field of Study:	Neurosciences
Home Institution:	Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu
Host Institution:	Columbia University, NY
Grant Start Month:	January 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Siddharth Bhardwaj is currently serving as a faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore. His research interests include ergonomics, human factors, human motor adaptation, and rehabilitation robotics. He obtained his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Aligarh Muslim University (2020), where his research focused on developing EMG-based control strategies for lower limb rehabilitation devices.

Dr. Bhardwaj has three years of postdoctoral experience at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat. During his time at IIT Gandhinagar, he contributed to the development of a passive back exosuit for manual lifting tasks and investigated sensory augmentation and virtual reality (VR) technology for improving postural balance and control. Dr. Bhardwaj has published several research articles in reputed journals and has been granted one patent in the field of mechanical engineering. His other scientific and academic recognitions include multiple Best Paper awards at international conferences, DST Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2023), CSIR Senior Research Fellowship (2017-2020), and university medal in MTech (mechanical engineering) from Aligarh Muslim University (2014).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Bhardwaj is studying the effect of personal and environmental factors on the gait and balance of individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). The study of these interacting factors is particularly important as freezing of gait and fall in PD patients is associated with response inhibition, divided attention, and visuospatial function. In particular, the project will explore VR-based visual perturbations incorporating personal and environmental factors for developing unique gait and balance training paradigms for PD patients.

Sonika Chibh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Design of Chemokine-Based Self-Assembled Nanoparticles for Receptor-mediated Specific Drug Delivery
Field of Study:	Bioengineering
Home Institution:	Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
Host Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
Grant Start Month:	December 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sonika Chibh is a postdoctoral fellow at Tel Aviv University, Israel. She obtained her B.Tech. in biotechnology degree from Jaypee University of Information Technology, Solan, Himachal Pradesh in 2014, and her master’s (M.Tech.) in biotechnology from Thapar University, Patiala, Punjab in 2016. She then received her Ph.D. in 2022 from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research/ Institute of Nanoscience and Technology Mohali, Punjab. Her Ph.D. work focused on the formation of self-assembled peptide-based nanoparticles as a drug delivery system in cancer therapy. Her postdoctoral research at Tel Aviv University focused on the development of monoclonal antibodies against phenylalanine for the treatment of phenylketonuria, with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Dr. Sonika Chibh has published several research articles in recognized international journals during her Ph.D. and postdoctoral studies. She received a George S. Wise Post-doctoral fellowship at Tel Aviv University in 2022. During her Ph.D. she received the Young Researcher award in an oral presentation organized by SYBS in 2021. She also received the Best Poster award in Bengaluru Nano in 2022.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Dr. Chibh is working on a project entitled “Design of Chemokine-Based Self-Assembled Nanoparticles for Receptor-mediated Specific Drug Delivery”. This project is in collaboration with Dr. Shuguang Zhang and MIT Institute Professor Robert Langer, who is the father of controlled drug delivery.

Deblina Dey

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Obsolescence: Ageing, Law, and the Politics of Care in India
Field of Study:	Sociology
Home Institution:	O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana
Host Institution:	DePaul University, IL
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Ten months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Deblina Dey is an associate professor of sociology and the assistant director of the Centre for Law and Humanities at the Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat. She was a Hunt Postdoctoral fellow with the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, based in New York. The University Grants Commission, Government of India, awarded her the Junior and Senior Research fellowships for doctoral research in sociology at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Dr. Dey writes on contemporary socio-legal issues and has published in edited volumes and reputed international journals on topics such as dispute resolution forums for older people, custodial neglect of older political prisoners, and religious norms related to end-of-life care. In 2022, she was awarded the Prof. Nirendra Chandra Choudhury Young Scholar award in social anthropology and sociology for her research contribution by the Indian Anthropological Society. She has been an alumna of academies and workshops organized by the Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard University, and is a team member for events at the Law and Social Sciences Research Network (LASSnet), a global platform to generate critical discourse on law in South Asia.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at DePaul University, Chicago, IL, Dr. Dey is studying different eldercare models in urban India, focusing on the interventions made by law, market and philanthropic institutions. Her ethnographic research highlights the experiences of marginalization in late life and suggests ways to evolve better mechanisms to address abandonment, elder abuse and neglect.

Shikha Dixit

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Identification and validation of genes conferring favorable root architecture and pathogen tolerance under drought conditions in maize
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Raipur, Chhattisgarh
Host Institution:	Colorado State University, Fort Collins
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Shikha Dixit received her B.Sc. degree in agriculture from Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur in 2010. She obtained her postgraduation degree in plant biotechnology from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bengaluru. She received an ICAR fellowship during her graduation and a DBT fellowship for her postgraduate studies after securing ninth position in a national-level exam. She received her Ph.D. in molecular biology and biotechnology in the year 2020 from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Her Ph.D. research was focused on understanding the defense molecular signaling pathway in response to fungal pathogens. During her postdoctoral research, she worked on DBT-funded and ICAR-funded projects, focusing on improving tolerance against necrotrophic pathogens by finding unique signaling factors in response to pathogens. She has published her research in prestigious journals and has also presented her findings at numerous national and international conferences. Apart from the academic fellowships, she is also the recipient of the IARI merit medal in 2020 and the ITS grant in 2023.

Adverse climatic conditions affect both plants and pathogens. Given their rapid adaptation ability, fluctuations in the weather pattern provide pathogens with more favorable conditions to thrive and increase the possibility of intense disease breakouts. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, Dr. Dixit is identifying genes conferring favorable root architecture and pathogen tolerance under the dual-stress situation.

Abhijeet Atmaram Ghanwat

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	A study of minimal genus trisections, minimal genus relative trisections of compact 4–manifolds, their Murasugi sums and related properties
Field of Study:	Mathematical Sciences
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Host Institution:	University of Georgia, GA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Two years

Brief Bio:

Dr. Abhijeet Atmaram Ghanwat is currently an NBHM postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Tamil Nadu. He earned his B.Sc. in 2012 from Tuljaram Chaturchand College, Baramati, affiliated with Savitribai Phule Pune University, and completed his M.Sc. in 2014 at Savitribai Phule Pune University. In July 2021, he was awarded a Ph.D. from the Chennai Mathematical Institute, Tamil Nadu. Dr. Ghanwat was a visiting fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai from August 2021 to July 2023.

Dr. Ghanwat’s research interests are primarily in the field of low-dimensional topology, with a focus on the open books of 3-manifolds, Lefschetz fibrations of 4-manifolds, and trisections of 4-manifolds. He has published several research articles in reputed international journals. He has qualified for the CSIR-UGC NET and GATE examinations, and he was also awarded a gold medal by Savitribai Phule Pune University for achieving the first rank in his M.Sc. program.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA, Dr. Ghanwat is focusing on trisections of 4-manifolds, a pioneering area of study introduced in 2016 by Prof. David Gay and Prof. Robion Kirby. The trisection theory has quickly become an important tool in understanding the topology of 4-dimensional manifolds. During his fellowship, Dr. Ghanwat aims to explore minimal genus (relative) trisections and investigate their properties.

Kavita Haribhau Kadu

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Development of Aptamer-siRNA Chimera as a Novel Targeted Therapy for Pediatric Medulloblastoma
Field of Study:	Bioengineering
Home Institution:	Tata Memorial Centre Advanced Centre for Treatment, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Kavita Haribhau Kadu is a chemical technologist with a bachelor’s degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Following her undergraduate studies, she embarked on a research journey as a Junior Research Fellow at BITS Pilani – K. K. Birla Goa campus. She pursued her Ph.D. from BITS Pilani – K. K. Birla Goa campus on the synthesis and characterization of hydroxyapatite nanoparticles and investigation of their interaction with biomolecules.

Transitioning to the TNBC Precision Medicine Research Group at Tata Memorial Centre Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Dr. Kadu delved into studying the short-term chemotherapy effect on the expression of the GPX4 gene on triple-negative breast cancer subtypes. She showcased her research acumen by securing the Lalit Memorial award at the 18th National Research Scholars Meet held in ACTREC. Throughout her research journey, she demonstrated a commitment to scholarly dissemination, publishing eight papers and actively participating in conferences.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX, Dr. Kadu is developing Aptamer-siRNA Chimera as a novel targeted therapy for pediatric medulloblastoma. Investigating the roles of AXL and interferons, she aims to contribute significantly to understanding and treating this aggressive brain tumor. With interdisciplinary expertise and a passion for impactful research, Dr. Kadu is set to make substantial contributions to cancer biology and precision medicine, shaping the future of innovative therapeutic interventions.

Ashish Jha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Testing the Core-Periphery Hypothesis: Spatial Patterns of Genetic and Phenotypic Diversity Among Nearctic Bird Populations
Field of Study:	Agricultural Sciences
Home Institution:	Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, Uttarakhand
Host Institution:	Louisiana State University, LA
Grant Start Month:	March 2025
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Ashish Jha is currently employed as Scientist C at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. Prior to this, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali (2022-2023) and worked as a research associate at Kerala Agricultural University Thrissur (2021-2022). He has an MTech in biotechnology from IIT Kharagpur (2014) and a BTech in biotechnology from NIT Raipur (2012). He is a recipient of competitive national fellowships such as GATE, CSIR-NET and SERB-NPDF.

Dr. Jha obtained his Ph.D. from CSIR-CCMB Hyderabad for his work on biogeography and population genetics of South India endemic and globally threatened yellow-throated bulbul (Pycnonotus xantholaemus). After his Ph.D., he worked on the Kerala Bird Atlas project and studied avian diet via stable-isotope analysis. He is interested in avian conservation using multi-pronged approaches including genetics, long-term monitoring, field-based natural history studies and community outreach.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, Dr. Jha is empirically testing the core-periphery hypothesis using Nearctic birds as a model system. This study aims to generate empirical support for the core-periphery hypothesis by quantifying external phenotypes and genomic variation across populations in multiple avian species, leveraging the power of museum specimens.

Naveen Kumar Tailor

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Addressing Fundamental Challenges in X-Ray Imaging: A Breakthrough with 3D/2D Perovskite Heterocrystals
Field of Study:	Physics
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Host Institution:	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Naveen Kumar Tailor is working as a research associate in the Department of Physics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. He completed his M.Sc. in physics from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, and Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. His Ph.D. research focused on the comprehensive description of lead-free perovskites and double perovskite single crystals, including growth and investigation of fundamental properties, structure-property relationships with cation and anion transmutation, carrier dynamics, and excited state physics using optical and electrical spectroscopy techniques, as well as applications in photodetection and X-ray detection. His Ph.D. research was recognized with the Excellence in Doctoral Research award. Additionally, he has gained experience in perovskite solar cells and explored carrier dynamics in perovskites using impedance spectroscopy, as well as fundamental photophysics in perovskite nanocrystals. Recently, he has started working on CO2 reduction, focusing on the discovery of novel materials for efficient CO2 photoreduction and studying the fundamental mechanisms behind it.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Tailor’s has meticulously planned a project with the goal of developing cost-effective and stable X-ray detectors using solution-processed 3D/2D perovskite heterocrystals with exceptional sensitivity and low detection limits. This effort aims to increase the commercialization potential of this technology, fostering a vibrant ecosystem of X-ray detector manufacture in India and the U.S.

Gargi Kundu

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Fluorescent Boron-based Radicals and their Applications
Field of Study:	Chemistry
Home Institution:	Philipps University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany
Host Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MA
Grant Start Month:	March 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Gargi Kundu is an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at Philipps University of Marburg, Germany. She obtained her B.Sc. from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal in 2015, and her master’s from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu in 2017. She then received her Ph.D. in 2022 at CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), Pune, Maharashtra, with CSIR-UGC NET fellowship.

Dr. Kundu specializes in the chemistry of N-Heterocyclic Carbenes, focusing on small molecule activation, stabilization of carbon-based diradicals, and NHC-boron chemistry. She has published numerous articles in esteemed international journals, and has received various accolades during her Ph.D., including the NCL RF Keerthi Sangoram Memorial Endowment award for ‘the best research scholar’, and the Best Thesis award in chemical science from CSIR-NCL and AcSIR, respectively. Notable achievements also include the RSC Best Poster award by Poster Twitter Conference, and the Best Oral Talk award at ICMGSC-2023.

The diradical field, despite intriguing electronic properties, lacks extensive study. Boron-doped PAHs are gaining attention for being low in toxicity, cost-effective, with high π-affinity, photoluminescence, and redox properties. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, Dr. Kundu is synthesizing stable boron-based diradicals, combining open-shell diradical character, luminescence, and redox properties. The focus is on exploring their potential applications as super-electron donors, photo-/electro-catalysts, redox switches, functional chromophores/ fluorophores in photovoltaic cells, and artificial light-harvesting systems with a special emphasis on hydrogen activation.

Shameer Modongal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Perspectives of the American Islamic Public Sphere on U.S-Israel Relations
Field of Study:	Political Science
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	American University, DC
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Shameer Modongal completed his Ph.D. in international relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. He also holds M.A and M.Phil. degrees in international relations from the same institution, as well as an M.A in political science from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi. Dr. Modongal’s scholarly achievements include qualifying for the Junior Research Fellowship and the National Eligibility Test of the University Grants Commission in international and area studies, as well as the National Eligibility Test in political science.

In the realm of academic publications, Dr. Modongal has made significant contributions, notably publishing two books in 2022: Islamic Perspectives on International Conflict Resolution: Theological Debates on the Israel-Palestinian Peace Process (Routledge) and Religion and Nuclear Weapons: A Study of Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan (Vij Books India). Additionally, he co-edited the book Counterterrorism and Global Security: Genesis, Responses and Challenges (Vij Books India) in 2021. He also serves as an editor or reviewer for many prestigious international journals, including the British Journal of Political Science (Cambridge University Press) and Cogent Social Sciences (Taylor and Francis).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the American University, Washington, D.C., Dr. Modongal is engaged in exploring the dynamics between American Islamic scholars and organizations amidst conflicting interests of pro-Israel U.S. government policies and pro-Palestinian Muslim community interests. His research examines how the Islamic discourse in the U.S. shapes perceptions regarding the formation of Israel and the friendly relations of Muslim countries with it, as well as the discourse among Islamic scholars and organizations surrounding the support that the U.S. extends to Israel.

Siddhartha Mukherjee

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Harnessing the interplay between elasticity and hydrodynamics at micro-scale: Fundamentals and Applications
Field of Study:	Mathematical Sciences
Home Institution:	University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands
Host Institution:	TBC, At-Large
Grant Start Month:	January 2025
Duration of Grant:	Eighteen months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands. Previously, he was a C. V. Raman postdoctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. In 2022, Dr. Mukherjee completed his Ph.D. from IIT Kharagpur. His doctoral research explored the role of viscoelastic rheology in electrokinetic transport. Prior to that, he obtained his postgraduate and undergraduate degrees in chemical engineering from IIT Kanpur and Jadavpur University, respectively.

Dr. Mukherjee’s research interest lies in developing innovative designs at a microscale level to leverage different interplays; for example, fluid-structure interactions in bio-mimetic microvascular systems, or the confluence of thermal and electrokinetic transport. He has published 12 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. He is also a reviewer of the journals Applied Physics Letters, Physics of Fluids, and Journal of Applied Physics. In addition to his postdoctoral fellowships, Dr. Mukherjee received the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) fellowship during his doctoral and postgraduate studies, and scholarship from the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education (WBCHSE) during his undergraduate studies.

Intrinsic deformability is a hallmark of modern-day microfluidic substrates. Despite having a wide gamut of applications, the non-trivial role of substrate flexibility in both engineering and natural settings is far from being well understood. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Mukherjee, through a combination of mathematical modeling, numerical simulations, and experiments, is investigating the intricate coupling between fluid mechanics and elasticity at the microscale.

Gaurav Pandey

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Bienzymatic cascade system of halloysite nanotubes doped with photocatalytic nanoparticles for synergistic degradation of non-degradable plastics
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	TBC, At-Large
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Gaurav Pandey earned his Ph.D. from the National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat in 2023. His doctoral research focused on utilizing halloysite nanotubes loaded with various guest molecules for diverse biological applications. Throughout his Ph.D. journey, he consistently addressed environmental concerns, including heavy metal remediation, waste reduction, and pesticide sensing. He holds a master’s degree in forensic nanotechnology with a specialization in nanobiotechnology from Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, and a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Kattankulathur, Tamil Nadu. He was awarded gold and silver medals for his master’s and bachelor’s degrees, respectively. Dr. Pandey has qualified national-level exams, namely UGC NET JRF (in forensic science) in 2019 and GATE (in biotechnology) in 2016. He has authored over 30 publications, including research papers, review articles, a co-authored book, and book chapters.

Dr. Pandey’s research interests encompass leveraging naturally occurring clay-based nanomaterials to tackle contemporary environmental challenges, including mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, combating plastic pollution, and addressing water contamination issues.

As a Fulbright Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Pandey’s project is investigating the degradation of plastic waste using halloysite nanotube-based nanocomposites. The outcomes of this research have the potential to aid India in reducing its plastic waste burden and working towards the goal of becoming a low-plastic waste producing country by 2050.

Sarvesh Pandey

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Scalable and Efficient Data Processing on Decentralized Ledger
Field of Study:	Computer Science
Home Institution:	Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of California, CA
Grant Start Month:	November 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sarvesh Pandey is an assistant professor of computer science at Banaras Hindu University since November 2020. At BHU, he has been actively involved in teaching, research, and administration activities. Dr. Pandey obtained his MTech and Ph.D. degrees from the Computer Science and Engineering Department of Madan Mohan Malaviya University of Technology, Gorakhpur. His broad research areas include blockchains, cloud computing, and database systems. In 2014, he secured 33rd rank in the CSIR-NET examination for engineering sciences. Under the CSIR scheme, he worked as a Junior Research Fellow (JRF) and subsequently as a Senior Research Fellow (SRF) during his Ph.D. He has also qualified for the GATE entrance examination in computer science and information technology.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Pandey will explore two crucial research directions: efficient data management utilizing blockchain technology, and blockchain application in crowdsourcing. As the current decentralized data processing and retrieval landscape is transitioning, his plan involves optimizing blockchain performance, specifically addressing query retrieval efficiency and facilitating rich queries. Additionally, he aims to incorporate access control mechanisms within the blockchain framework. The research outcomes will be seamlessly integrated into existing crowdsourcing applications, capitalizing on the strengths of both domains

Purbajyoti Phukon

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Metamorphism as a driver of CO2 emission during mountain building: Insights from the Himalayan orogenic belt
Field of Study:	Earth Sciences
Home Institution:	Assam University, Silchar, Assam
Host Institution:	University of California, Santa Barbara
Grant Start Month:	November 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twelve months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Purbajyoti Phukon has been working as an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Science, Assam University, Silchar since 2019. He obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from Dibrugarh University, Assam. He completed his Ph.D. jointly from Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG), Dehradun and the Department of Geology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

Dr. Phukon’s research focuses on metamorphic petrology, geochronology, and continental tectonics, focusing on understanding the metamorphism, deformation, exhumation of deep-seated rocks in the Himalayan Orogen, and evolution shear zones. His research incorporates multidisciplinary approaches, including microstructural analysis, petrochronology of accessory mineral phases such as zircon and monazite, phase equilibria modeling, and the study of ductile deformation patterns in crystalline rocks. He has published his findings in several high-impact journals such as Lithos, GSA Bulletin, and Earth Science Review. As an assistant professor in Assam University, Silchar, he has secured two research grants – the Start-up research grant (SRG) project sponsored by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), and the Indian Himalayan Central University Consortium project of NITI Aayog, sponsored by the Ministry of Education and UGC. Additionally, he received grants for attending international conferences from SERB Travel Support and won the Best Paper award in 2018 at WIHG, Dehradun.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, Dr. Phukon aims to discern the inherent characteristics, temporal extent, and quantitative estimations of metamorphic CO2 fluxes within the eastern segment of the Himalayan orogen. Furthermore, he seeks to ascertain the potential contribution of CO2 fluxes to the atmosphere during geologically distant epochs.

Swayam Sampurna Panigrahi

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Human rights issues in textile and apparel supply chains of India and the U.S.
Field of Study:	Public Policy
Home Institution:	Krea University, Sri City, Andhra Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Connecticut, CT
Grant Start Month:	February 2025
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Swayam Sampurna Panigrahi is an assistant professor in IFMR-GSB, Sri City. Before this, she worked with IPE Hyderabad, IMI Bhubaneswar, and Woxsen University. She holds a doctorate degree from XIMB, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha in supply chain sustainability. She was a TEQIP scholarship awardee from the Government of India during her MTech from VSSUT Burla, where she was also adjudged as the University Best Postgraduate in production engineering. She has a BTech in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Panigrahi’s research interests are business and human rights, e-waste management, and Industry 4.0 application in operations. She received the “MSME Fellowship” from NIMSME, Hyderabad, under the Ministry of MSME, Government of India in 2017. She has won two Best Paper awards at WIPRO Sustainability Summit in 2016 and at the 105th Indian Economic Association Annual International Conference in 2022. She received two consecutive Emerald Literati awards by the Emerald Publishing House, Bingley, UK in 2019 and 2020. She was also recognized as “LinkedIn Top Voice” in business management, business operations and lean manufacturing in 2023. She is an associate member of the Business and Human Rights Forum at Columbia University.

Human rights issues in global textile and apparel supply chains require joint attention from policy makers, civil society members, and supply chain researchers. As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, Dr. Panigrahi’s research is uncovering gross human rights violations. Her objective is to develop a generic framework to address these challenges through exchange of best practices across the U.S. and India.

Sucharita Sen

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	The Hierarchy-Intimacy Paradox: Everyday Interracial Relationships in British India (1800-1915)
Field of Study:	History
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Kolkata, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Ohio State University, OH
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twelve months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sucharita Sen is interested in the politics of everyday life beyond the conventional epicenters of power, with her research methodologically anchored at the intersection of history and political anthropology. She completed her Ph.D. in 2022 from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Dr. Sen is a recipient of the Walter L. Arnstein prize for the Best Ph.D. Paper at the 68th annual Midwest conference on British Studies (a regional affiliate of the North American conference on British Studies), 2021, the prize for the Best Ph.D. Paper at the 2021 biennial conference of the New Zealand Historical Association, and a Certificate of Excellence from Oxford University Press (India) for being the winning contributor of the December (2021) issue of Tell Me Your Story Review. Her works have appeared in South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Contemporary South Asia, Society and Culture in South Asia and Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities.

Currently, Dr. Sen is co-editing the December 2025 (special) issue of the New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, and a post-conference edited volume (with Sekhar Bandyopadhyay) comprising selected papers from the ones presented at an international conference which she convened at the University of Auckland in September 2023.

Dr. Sen is working on her first monograph. The project examines, within the frameworks of affect theory and the critiques of Orientalism, a world of intimate power vis-à-vis official animosities in British India. The monograph revises her Ph.D. thesis, brings in additional materials, and rewrites the already published materials afresh. She also plans to co-convene an international conference with the support of her mentor at OSU. The conference will specifically boost Indo-U.S. collaboration in the field of South Asian Studies.

Sujay Shekar Ganganakatte Chandrashekar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Tandem Photocatalysis for CO2 Reduction Selectivity over Halide Perovskite-based 2D/2D S-Scheme Nanoheterostructures
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Mysuru, Karnataka
Host Institution:	University of Notre Dame, IN
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sujay Shekar G. C. is an environmental researcher and a metaphysicist. He earned his bachelor’s degree (2015) in science from Sarada Vilas College, Mysuru, and his master’s degree (2017) in physics from St. Philomena’s College, Mysuru. He received his Ph.D. in Physics (2023) from the University of Mysore. In 2018, he worked as a university lecturer at Department of Science in Physics, University of Mysore, and later joined as an assistant professor in 2023 at RNSIT, Visvesvaraya Technological University. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Studies in Physics at St. Philomena’s College, and the Board of Examination in Physics at Karnataka State Open University and JSS Science and Technology University.

Dr. Sujay Shekar believes in understanding the natural world as a means of achieving spiritual enrichment. In this pursuit, he initiated his research on solar energy utilization to create a more sustainable future. He works in the field of physical chemistry and material science to develop advanced nanomaterials for cleaner and more efficient light energy conversion. Through his doctoral research projects, he contributed to semiconductor photoelectrochemistry by engineering nanomaterials for effective photocatalytic applications. He even demonstrated the usage of sunlight for more sustainable synthesis methods of functional materials. Many of his designed compounds exhibited better solar energy conversion efficiency and produced greener solar fuels.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Dr. Sujay Shekar is developing new photosystems for boosted photochemical tandem reactions and understand the underlying phenomena of charge dynamics.

Sujata Singh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Development of Sodium-based (Na/Sb) intermetallic thin film as potential anode for Sodium-Ion Battery.
Field of Study:	Materials Science
Home Institution:	Independent researcher, Bengaluru, Karnataka
Host Institution:	Texas A & M University, TX
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Sujata Singh is a technical analyst at Customized Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an energy sector-based consulting firm, in association with Indian Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). She obtained her Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Her doctoral research focused on studying the microstructure-property correlation of High Entropy Alloy-Carbon Nanotubes composites. She received her master’s degree in metallurgical and materials engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and bachelor’s degree from Birsa Institute of Technology, Sindri, Dhanbad.

Dr. Singh’s research interest is in the study of electrochemical behavior of advanced materials, understanding underlying electrochemistry in protective coatings/thin films, utilizing nanomaterials to achieve enhanced properties, electron microscopy, microstructure-property correlation, and failure analysis with applications in the field of corrosion and Lithium-Ion Battery. She has published several research articles in reputed international journals and received the Senior Research Fellowship issued by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India. She also received an award for the best all-round performance in 2013.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Singh is developing alternate battery technologies that enable sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable electrochemical energy storage. The focus of the study is to investigate new electrode architecture, exploring methods to mitigate issues such as capacity fading, mechanical degradation, dendrite formation and cyclability in Sodium-Antimony Intermetallic Battery. The project advances the field’s understanding of this promising energy storage technology.

Harshit Sosan Lakra

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Contextualizing impact of co-planning, co-designing and co-learning on Indigenous People, classroom learning and stakeholders in India and USA from the perspective of housing, culture and environment
Field of Study:	Urban and Regional Planning
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Host Institution:	University of Central Florida, FL
Grant Start Month:	March 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Harshit Sosan Lakra, a proud Oraon tribe woman from India, serves as assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and Planning and joint faculty at the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems at IIT Roorkee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from MANIT, Bhopal and a master’s degree in environmental planning from CEPT, Ahmedabad. Dr. Lakra was a FORD Foundation International fellow, which enabled her to pursue her second master’s in urban and regional planning from Cornell University in 2009, with a focus on international studies in planning. At Cornell University, she won the Cornell Urban Scholarship award and the Graduate Research Scholarship award. She completed her doctoral research at IIT Roorkee in 2019. In 2023, Dr, Lakra was selected as a Himalayan University Consortium fellow through which she co-leads a workgroup and collaborates with women leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.

Dr. Lakra is leading national and international projects focusing on Tribal Human Development Index (HDI), adaptation of indigenous and local knowledge systems, and Fintech Solutions for comprehensive tribal development in Chhattisgarh, along with GoAL (gender-orientated adaptive learning) for climate change and disaster risk resilience in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Japan, indicating her interdisciplinary interest.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Lakra intends to create a platform for discourse, co- and cross-learning on housing, culture, and environment at different scales and connect students, stakeholders, and indigenous communities from India and the U.S. The project will bring diverse understanding and experiences, especially for the domain and community that is less researched.

Shruti Suriyakumar

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
Project Title:	Interface-Engineered Argyrodite/Halide Electrolytes for All-Solid-State Lithium batteries
Field of Study:	Energy Studies
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	Rice University, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Shruti Suriyakumar did her post-graduation at Lady Doak College, Madurai, where she majored in physics and joined CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi for her Ph.D. Her doctoral thesis on developing nanostructured composite cathodes, permselective separators, and ionic liquid-based hybrid electrolytes for lithium-sulfur batteries was conferred the Best Thesis award in Physical Sciences from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi.

Dr. Suriyakumar later received the National Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram (IISER TVM). Her research was focused on developing sulphide-based solid electrolytes for sodium batteries. As a project scientist at IISER TVM, she has contributed to developing solid electrolytes for lithium and sodium batteries and has been involved in designing electrodes and electrolytes for next-generation battery chemistries.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Suriyakumar’s research at Rice University, Houston, TX is focusing on electrode-electrolyte interface engineering for solid-state batteries. The project involves the rational design of 2D materials, introducing them as interlayers/ coatings between the solid-solid point of contact and regulating the lithium-ion flux, thereby improving the cycling stability and performance of all-solid-state lithium batteries.

Purendra Prasad

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Chair Program at University of Massachusetts Amherst (Research and Teaching)
Project Title:	Mapping the Ultra Rich: Role of Ascriptive Identities Caste, Race and Gender and Possibility of Inclusive Policies
Field of Study:	Public Policy
Home Institution:	University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	University of Massachusetts, MA
Grant Start Month:	January 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

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.

Tanusree Basak

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Amal College of Advanced Studies University of Calicut, Malappuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Tanusree Basak is an ESL trainer and course instructor at Amal College of Advanced Studies, University of Calicut in Kerala. She has worked in academic publishing as an assistant editor. She completed her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Bharati College, University of Delhi, and her master’s degree in English literature from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi with SVC rank 1st in the merit list. Simultaneously, she completed the three-year advanced diploma in French from the University of Delhi and continues her association with the language as a freelance French teacher. She is also a trained vocalist with specialization in Rabindrasangeet and Indian classical music. She participated in activities of the music society and the literary society, and in French plays at her university.

Tanusree has also presented papers at various national and international conferences and has published a paper in Intersections Journal. She has a few forthcoming book chapters and journal articles. She plans to pursue doctoral studies, and is broadly interested in discourses on modernism, psychoanalysis in literature, gender studies, cultural studies, and philosophy.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Tanusree is teaching Hindi at Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. She envisions the classroom as a medium to articulate individual experiences and sustain dialogues across differences. This opportunity to teach and to audit courses will enable her to expand her intellectual horizons on subjects pertinent to her broader academic interests, alongside acquiring innovative pedagogical practices. In her classes, students will get to engage in multi-faceted and vibrant language lessons. As a cultural ambassador, she strives to familiarize students with her country and culture through practical and tangible activities and experiences.

Vaibhavi Chaturvedi

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi and Urdu
Home Institution:	The English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Vaibhavi Chaturvedi is a PhD candidate in English literature at the English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow. Her research delves into the significance of culinary narratives, exploring how they serve as vital spaces for creative expression and cultural identity for women. Through her work, she aims to highlight the intersection of food, literature, and gender, revealing how culinary storytelling can empower women and provide insight into their lived experiences and societal roles.

Vaibhavi completed her master’s degree at Jamia Millia Islamia and her bachelor’s degree at the University of Delhi. She has been awarded the Junior Research Fellowship by the University Grants Commission of India. She has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences and has published papers in her field of study. With over two years of experience, she has taught English as a foreign language to young and adult learners from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. During her time as an intern with the Anubhuti Organization, she assisted in the development of a competency-based curriculum for students who had dropped out of primary schools.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Vaibhavi will be teaching Hindi and Urdu at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. She aims to promote cross-cultural understanding by integrating a range of cultural perspectives into her teaching. She is eager to participate in the program as it will enhance her ability to be a compassionate and culturally aware scholar and educator.

Anuja Halder

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Nvidia Corporation, Bengaluru, Karnataka
Host Institution:	Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, MS
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Anuja Halder works as a prompt engineer with Nvidia Corporation in Bengaluru. She deals with generative AI and works with Language Learning Materials (LLM) to train AI models to be more human-like, impersonal, and creative. She completed her master’s in English from the English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in 2021. Her interest lies in teaching and training, data analytics, gender studies, and dramatics. She also holds a diploma in theatre arts and a bachelor’s degree in English. She has delivered guest lectures and served as a panelist at Amity University in Noida from 2021 to 2023.

As a resource person, Anuja has conducted extensive fieldwork with the Azim Premji Foundation in Uttarakhand. She has taught in government schools, trained Anganwadi and government primary-school teachers in remote villages, and facilitated district-level workshops on FLN for Teacher Professional Development. Her research on storytelling, gender, and climate change has been published in esteemed journals. Additionally, she is actively engaged with the United Nations as a volunteer.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Anuja is teaching Hindi at Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, MS. She aspires to juxtapose her language training expertise and experience to create a cultural bridge between India and the U.S. She aims to blend her professional skillset with cultural exploration, aspiring to understand and integrate into her educational practices, diverse cultural patterns through language.

Mohammad Jibraan Fazili

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Urdu
Home Institution:	Malla Reddy University, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	Indiana University, Bloomington, IN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Mohammad Jibraan Fazili is an assistant professor of English at Malla Reddy University in Hyderabad, where he teaches English language and literature courses. He has developed curriculum material and mentored English-language learners. He also has an extensive experience as an English tutor on various online platforms, where he gave personalized training to a diverse group of students. He also conducts communication and soft skills training, personality development sessions, and prepares students for Cambridge B2 level competence and tests like IELTS, and TOEFL. His deep understanding of the nuances of language and literature underline his teaching methods.

With a focus on immigration, nativism, and modern fiction, Dr. Fazili earned his PhD in English from Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 2024, where he also completed his master’s and bachelor’s degrees in English. Proficient in, Urdu, Kashmiri and English, Dr. Fazili has presented papers at notable national and international conferences and published articles in various journals.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, Dr. Fazili will try to elevate cultural awareness of India’s heritage through dynamic engagement. Employing innovative and interactive approaches, he hopes to introduce Urdu language and literature to students, fostering a vibrant classroom environment. His methodological blend will enhance learning, promote multilingual competencies, and encourage exploration of diverse languages and cultures.

Aditya Raj

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Darbhanga, Bihar
Host Institution:	Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Aditya Raj is a passionate educator and scholar with a deep interest in languages, literature, science, technology and environmental studies. He holds a master’s degree in English, and has qualified UGC NET for university-level teaching. He was guest faculty in the Department of English at Lalit Narayan Mithila University, where he taught a diverse range of topics like Indian classical literature, Victorian literature, postmodernism and other literary theories. Beyond teaching, Aditya is engaged in doctoral research, exploring human-AI intersections, terraforming and the role of culture in science fiction. He actively contributes to the academic community by publishing research articles, contributing chapters to edited books and attending conferences.

Aditya’s passion for languages extends beyond his native Hindi; he has completed a certificate course in French as well. He has volunteered his language skills by teaching Hindi to local communities in Nepal.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Aditya is teaching Hindi at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. He seeks to empower his students by making them proficient in Hindi, while also enriching his own educational journey by understanding American culture, learning innovative teaching methods and advanced pedagogical skills. He sees this two-way exchange as an opportunity to create a vibrant learning environment and celebrate the richness of intercultural connections.

Ruchi Rana

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	University of Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	University of Illinois, Chicago, IL
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Ruchi Rana is a PhD candidate at the Department of MIL & LS, University of Delhi, Delhi. She recently defended her doctoral thesis, which examines nature and ecological ethos in Uttarakhand’s folklife. She holds a master’s in English literature and an MPhil in comparative Indian literature from the University of Delhi. She has worked as a research coordinator for a project on Kazi Nazrul Islam jointly undertaken by the MIL Department (DU) and Kazi Nazrul University, West Bengal. Her research areas include folkloristics, Himalayan culture, diasporic literature, and memory studies.

Ruchi received two academic excellence awards in BA English (Honours) from Swami Shraddhanand College (DU). She is a recipient of a research fellowship for the National Mission on Cultural Mapping (NMCM) of Indian villages, a project under the Ministry of Culture, the Government of India.

Ruchi has presented papers at several national and international conferences, including the 134th annual meeting of the American Folklore Society (2022), the 14th conference of SIEF (2022), the annual conference of the Folklore Society of London (2022), and 10th International Conference of Young Folklorists (2021), organised by University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research on Uttarakhand’s Jagar ritual got published in the UGC Care-listed journal The Eastern Anthropologist in 2022.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Illinois in Chicago, Ruchi aims to fortify the bonds between India and the U.S. by promoting intercultural dialogue through Hindi language instruction. Her objectives are to broaden her teaching philosophy, develop innovative pedagogies, and foster a multicultural mindset among her students.

Payal Saini

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Poornima University, Jaipur, Rajasthan
Host Institution:	Yale University, New Haven, CT
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Payal Saini, a NET and GATE-qualified scholar, is currently an assistant professor at Poornima University, Jaipur. She completed her master’s in English from the Central University of Gujarat in 2023. At Poornima University, she teaches literature and communication skills to undergraduate students, blending traditional and contemporary teaching methodologies. Payal is involved in curating cultural events, fostering a vibrant academic community for both faculty members and students.

Payal has actively participated in the Jaipur Literature Festival as a volunteer, where she was part of the social media team and was responsible for working on ground to capture the ambience of the festival, behind-the-scenes activities, and key sessions to generate online content for the festival. Her academic interests lie in folklore and Shekhawati literature, and she is researching the linguistic nuances and usage of the Shekhawati dialect in music. Beyond academia, she has extensive experience as a freelance content writer for various firms.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Yale University, New Haven, CT, Payal is dedicated to promoting the Hindi language on a global scale. She seeks to employ natural language processing techniques to enhance the accessibility and understanding of Hindi texts. She is keen on developing innovative pedagogies for language teaching, intending to implement these methods in her future endeavors.

Sneha Sharma

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Sneha Sharma is a dedicated Hindi tutor from Jorhat, Assam. She completed her master’s in linguistics from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, where she received a gold medal for her academic excellence. She also holds a master’s in English from the University of Delhi and completed her undergraduate studies at Sophia Girls’ College, Ajmer, where she was actively involved in various co-curricular activities. Sneha was a vibrant member of the college comm unity, participating in the theatre society, volunteering for the National Service Scheme (NSS), and serving on the editorial board of the university magazine.

Sneha has a profound passion for folk songs, Indian mythology, and various Indian dance forms. She is currently training in the Indian classical dance form Kathak and has a two year diploma in the same. Her love for languages and cultures extends beyond her formal education; she hosts a podcast and maintains a blog trying to promote the use of Hindi in the social sphere. She also authored a research paper titled “Birds in Selected Folksongs of Rajasthan,” highlighting her deep interest in regional folklore and culture.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Sneha is teaching Hindi at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. She aims to inspire and educate by blending traditional and modern elements, making learning an enriching and enjoyable journey for all her students. She is also keen to imbibe the teaching pedagogy of the U.S. so that innovative ideas may be formed and utilized in her teaching career.

Manvi Tandon

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Manvi Tandon is a PhD candidate at the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. She completed her master’s in English literature from Banaras Hindu University in 2022, following which she taught English at North-Eastern Hill University, Tura, Meghalaya for a semester as a guest lecturer. For her doctoral research, Manvi is studying narratives of relational childhood trauma. She is working in the area of childhood studies and is deeply interested in childhood ideology and child rights advocacy. Her academic interests include childhood narratives, translation, and popular culture.

Manvi studies Indian fiction for her doctoral thesis. She avidly participated in volunteering and social work during her undergraduate days through the National Service Scheme (NSS), and an internship at My Home India where she worked with ‘Children Under Need for Care and Protection.’

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Manvi is assisting with teaching Hindi at the Department of Asian Studies, the University of Texas at Austin, TX. She hopes to contribute to the university’s language programs and foster cross-cultural understanding. This opportunity will also allow her to immerse herself in American culture and share her knowledge of Indian life, to fulfill her role as a cultural ambassador.

Tuba Tasneem

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Unifye, Patna, Bihar
Host Institution:	Brown University, Providence, RI
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Tuba Tasneem is a literature enthusiast with an academic background. She is currently working as a consultant at Unifye, where she creates curriculum and content for vocational and educational courses, enhancing the efficiency for companies through innovative storytelling. She has also served as an educational content writer at Hurak, London where she created over 25 courses. Her dedication to education extended to her role as an assistant professor at Villa Marie Degree College for Women, Hyderabad where she taught English and organized literary events to engage students.

Tuba holds a master’s in English literature from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She completed her bachelor’s in English from Patna University. Tuba has qualified the National Eligibility Test for assistant professorship in English.

Tuba weaves her passion for medical humanities through diverse pursuits. She completed the course ‘International Women’s Health and Human Rights’ from Stanford University and explored medical narratives in contemporary literature through a faculty development program. In 2023, her TEDx talk at the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) conference in Hong Kong illuminated the poignant intersection of women’s rights, history, and postpartum depression.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at Brown University, Providence, RI, Tuba is dedicated to fostering cross-cultural understanding between the U.S. and India through innovative language teaching strategies. She embodies the Fulbright mission of promoting mutual understanding and international cooperation, enriching both educational systems with her diverse experiences and expertise. Tuba aspires to redefine educational paradigms, aiming to inspire future generations to embrace diversity and global citizenship.

Kavita Yadav

Grant Category:	Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Hindi
Home Institution:	Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Ohio University, Athens, OH
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Kavita Yadav is currently teaching at a government school in Delhi. She recently completed her PhD in linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Throughout her academic journey, she has been deeply interested in the interplay between language and society. Dr. Yadav has presented numerous papers at prestigious national and international conferences, exploring language through various linguistic principles. She has also published several papers in media studies and linguistics. She was awarded a national fellowship by the University Grants Commission (UGC), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India.

Dr. Yadav’s research interests include critical discourse analysis, media linguistics, and English Language Teaching (ELT). Her work examines the power dynamics within language use and media representations, providing insightful critiques and fostering a deeper understanding of societal issues. She has collaborated with various NGOs and international organizations to support underprivileged children and women, striving to blend her education and social consciousness holistically.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Dr. Yadav is teaching Hindi at Ohio University in Athens, OH. Her rich experiences with diverse cultures inform her efforts to build cross-cultural connections through literature, culinary arts, and performing arts. She aspires to create a dynamic, student-centred classroom that integrates literature, food, art, and media, fostering multicultural perspectives and enriching the educational experience of her students.

Ajay Biswas

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching)
Project Title:	Environment-friendly recharge-free aluminium air battery having corrosion-controlled anode and cathode
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	National Institute of Technology, Agartala, Tripura
Host Institution:	Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
Grant Start Month:	October 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Suneet Singh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching)
Project Title:	Load Following of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors using Hydrogen and Heat Production
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Ruchi Agrawal

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	Biorefinery Waste Lignin Valorization via Circular Bioeconomy
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Kasturi Das

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	Role of the Global Trading System and Climate Clubs in Facilitating Deep Decarbonization and Just Transition in Developing Countries - Insights from the Steel Industry in India
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	Yale University, New Haven, CT
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Poulomi Ganguli

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	Compound Climate Hazards from Heat Waves and Tropical Cyclones in Coastal India
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

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.

Amiya Kumar Sahoo

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	One Health Approach towards combating Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in Fisheries and Aquaculture under Climate Change through Epidemiology
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	CAR-Central Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Barrackpore, West Bengal
Host Institution:	One Health Trust, Washington, DC
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Seven months

Brief Bio:

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.

Manabendra Saharia

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	Development of an India Water Model (IWM) with a reservoir operation scheme to assess the impact of climate variability and human activity on water availability
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Washington, DC
Grant Start Month:	April 2025
Duration of Grant:	Four months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Manabendra Saharia is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering, at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. He obtained his PhD in water resources engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Saharia has received young scientist awards from the National Academy of Sciences, India (NASI) and the International Society for Energy, Environment and Sustainability (ISEES). Before joining IIT Delhi, Dr. Saharia worked in the hydrology labs of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His primary expertise is in developing techniques and systems for monitoring and mitigating natural hazards such as floods and landslides, with a special focus on the worst-affected regions of the world. His research seeks to disentangle the complex relationships between geomorphology, climate, precipitation, and runoff generation using physics-based and data-driven models.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Saharia is studying how one can incorporate reservoir models into land data assimilation systems for better assessment of climate change impacts. This includes incorporation or satellite and ground-based observations of reservoir water levels using a multi-source reservoir operation scheme. The goal is to quantify the impact of reservoirs on water storage, floods, and droughts, and also, to assess how reservoirs are responding to ongoing climate change and what measures would be required in the future

Syed Umer Latief

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research)
Project Title:	Chronology and Climatic Implications of Late Quaternary Glaciations in the Upper Liddar Valley, Northwest Himalaya, India
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Amar Singh College, Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir
Host Institution:	Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Amarjeet

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Study of Moisture Flux Patterns over India in Recent Warming Scenario Using State-of-the-Art Climate Model Simulations and its Consequences to India
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

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.

Ayushman Bhattacharya

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Transitioning Towards Low Carbon Bio-electricity Generation, Sustainable Nutrients Removal and Biofuel Production Through Microalgae Microbial Fuel Cell Technology
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana
Host Institution:	South Dakota School of Mines and Technology University, Rapid City, SD
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Eight months

Brief Bio:

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.

Chiranjit Das

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Impacts of Fire on CO2 and surface flux over South Asia and global tropics
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Eight months

Brief Bio:

Chiranjit Das is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, under the supervision of Prof. Ravi Kumar Kunchala. He is working on improving understanding of the current state of carbon dioxide exchange among biosphere-atmosphere-ocean and its spatiotemporal evolution using a wide variety of observation and state-of-the-art modelling methodologies. He has published various research articles in peer-reviewed journals and presented his work at national and international conferences and workshops.

Chiranjit has completed his master’s from the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, and was an IASc-INSA-NASI summer research fellow at the Space Physics Laboratory, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre. He has a bachelor’s in physics from Barasat Government College, West Bengal.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, Chiranjit is evaluating the role of fire in perturbing atmospheric carbon dioxide budget and its adverse effect on ecosystems across global tropics. The expected results from this study will improve carbon road map policy, ecosystem management, and emission mitigation strategy for stakeholders. Chiranjit hopes to go on treks in Pasadena while he is there. He enjoys playing badminton and volleyball, and is enthusiastic about exploring new places.

Gopikrishnan Gopalakrishna Pillai Sreerekha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Surface and Tropospheric Ozone in India and Global Tropics: Drivers and Impacts
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Columbia University, New York, NY
Grant Start Month:	September 2024
Duration of Grant:	Seven months

Brief Bio:

Gopikrishnan is a Ph.D. candidate in atmospheric chemistry-climate interactions. As a child he enjoyed stargazing, which sparked his fascination with the skies. The allure of the unseen intricacies of the atmosphere led him to pursue a path in science.

Gopikrishnan, a graduate in physical oceanography, with a university level first rank from the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies, investigates the relationships between climate, meteorology and ozone in the atmosphere. As a Prime Minister’s Research Fellow (PMRF) at ATMOS lab, CORAL, IIT Kharagpur, he studies complex chemistry feedback systems that regulate and are governed by ozone at both the surface and the troposphere. He employs cutting-edge techniques, such as remote sensing methods and 3D numerical models, to better understand the convoluted connections that influence atmospheric processes.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Columbia University, New York, NY, Gopikrishnan is working on chemistry transport models and investigating the chemical and dynamic aspects of atmospheric ozone. His primary goal is to identify the impact of aerosols on ozone variability using an extensive strategy supported by observations from a number of remotely sensed and ground-based data sources. His research findings are expected to elucidate the role of aerosol in ozone photochemistry using a global chemical transport model, with the goal of better parameterization of this process. He also plans on exploring the bustling streets of New York City, absorbing its warmth, vitality and vigour.

Sushmita Gouraha

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	To Understand the Impact of Urbanization on Rainfall Patterns over a Complex Terrain
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand
Host Institution:	Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Sushmita Gouraha is pursuing her Ph.D. from the Department of Hydrology at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, under the guidance of Prof. D. S. Arya and Prof. Piyush Srivastava. Her research focuses on understanding the impact of urbanization on changing rainfall patterns over a complex/ mountainous terrain. She completed her BE from the Government Engineering College Raipur, Chhattisgarh, and M. Tech from the National Institute of Technology Raipur, Chhattisgarh.

Growing up in a small town, surrounded by its vibrant tribal culture and natural beauty, Sushmita felt deeply connected to her roots and harboured a desire to serve the community by understanding and addressing environmental challenges. As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Sushmita is researching on critical concerns associated with urban dynamics, especially processes related to the impact of urban precipitation, using a numerical modelling approach. Her research will help in a better understanding of the urban processes responsible for altering precipitation patterns in complex terrains. In her free time, Sushmita enjoys exploring new places, learning about different cultures, and indulging in local games.

Meenu Rajagopalan Nair

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Investigation on the Role of Mixed-Phase Cloud Microphysics During Monsoon Spells
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Six months

Brief Bio:

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.

Abhisek Sahoo

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Doctoral Research
Project Title:	Green Carbon-Based Bimetallic Catalysts for Upgrading Biomass/ Plastic-Derived Bio-Liquids
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi, Delhi
Host Institution:	Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Grant Start Month:	January 2025
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Abhisek Sahoo grew up close to nature, in the coastal city of Puri, Orissa. He believes in creating a safe and healthy ecosystem for all species. Innovations in the field of solid waste management eventually led him to work in the area of sustainable development during his tenure at the esteemed laboratories of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and the Indian Institute of Petroleum Dehradun. Abhisek is currently working at IIT Delhi on the development of a process for the upgradation of bio-liquids via the thermo-catalytic route. Previously, he worked at University College London (UCL) as a Commonwealth fellow.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Abhisek is working on the thermo-catalytic conversion of waste biomass and plastic into aromatics and fuel-range hydrocarbons for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Employing green carbon-supported heterogeneous catalysts, his research aims to unlock the vast bioenergy potential inherent in waste substances. This breakthrough could pave the way for establishing biorefineries, supported by comprehensive techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessments.

Abhisek advocates for the idea that sustainability is our responsibility. His research endeavours reflect a dedication to addressing environmental challenges through innovative and practical solutions. His journey exemplifies the spirit of academic excellence and a deep commitment to the global pursuit of sustainable energy solutions. He is also interested in photography, traditional cuisines, and exploring historical sites.

Kausik Ghosh

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research
Project Title:	Towards sustainable water governance in transboundary rivers: Assessing the water-energy-food nexus for an adaptive water management framework in a changing climate
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Vidyasagar University, Midnapore, West Bengal
Host Institution:	Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, PA
Grant Start Month:	January 2025
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Kausik Ghosh is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography, Vidyasagar University, West Bengal. He is involved in interdisciplinary research and teaching on river geomorphology, sedimentology, hydrology and river regulations, climate change, transboundary river water-sharing and governance, ecosystem services, and water-energy-food (WEF) nexus. He uses remote sensing and GIS techniques, hydrological modeling, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), and field surveys for conducting geoscience research. He leads the GeoBridge research group which is dedicated to fostering a deeper understanding of the interconnected and complex relationship between geosciences and social sciences.

Dr. Ghosh earned his master’s degree from Banaras Hindu University before pursuing M.Phil. at CSRD, Jawaharlal Nehru University. In 2018, he was a Water Advanced Research Innovation (WARI) visiting scholar at the University of Nebraska, funded by DST, IUSSTF, and DWFI. He also received the DST AWSAR award, Acceleration Award by DTU and Denmark under the Inclusive and Integrated Water Management, Microsoft Innovative Educator Learner Award (MIELA).

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research at the Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Ghosh is developing a comprehensive framework for adaptive water management in transboundary river basins. The existing water-sharing treaties and governance mechanisms overlook aspects of river ecology, flow-sediment relations, climate variability, socio-economic demands, and the WEF nexus in transboundary basins. This study will simulate disparities in river water demand and supply, analyze synergies and trade-offs within the WEF nexus framework, and assess the role of transboundary institutions in mitigating risks associated with climate change.

Prashant Ram Jadhao

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Kalam Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research
Project Title:	Development of an Environmentally Friendly process for the recovery of Metals from Battery Waste: Embracing the concept of Circular Economy
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
Host Institution:	University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Grant Start Month:	January 2025
Duration of Grant:	Twenty-four-months

Brief Bio:

Dr. Prashant Ram Jadhao is a postdoctoral researcher at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain. Previously, he worked as a project scientist at the Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology, Hyderabad. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune, Maharashtra. Subsequently, he pursued his master’s and doctoral degrees at IIT Delhi.

Dr. Jadhao has received the prestigious Gandhian Young Technological Innovation appreciation award. Additionally, in 2022, he was conferred the Sumant Sinha Sustainability Leadership Award by IIT Delhi for his outstanding contribution to research in the domains of sustainability, environment, and climate change. His research endeavors have garnered recognition on both national and international platforms.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Postdoctoral Research at the University of California, Los Angeles, Dr. Jadhao is developing eco-friendly technology for recycling of spent batteries. The exponential increase in the use of electronic devices and electric vehicles has resulted in increased battery production, leading to a significant volume of spent batteries. These spent batteries contain valuable metals and potentially hazardous materials. Ensuring the sustainable management of spent batteries is crucial for resource recovery, conservation, and the mitigation of environmental hazards.

Rajamanickam Marimuthu Gurusamy

Grant Category:	Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Natural Resources Environmental Policy and Climate Change
Home Institution:	Local Self Government Department, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Host Institution:	Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Ten months

Brief Bio:

M. G. Rajamanickam is an esteemed Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, renowned for his strategic vision and transformative leadership. Hailing from the humble village of Thiruvathavur in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, Rajamanickam’s journey is marked by the firm belief in the power of determination and hard work. His academic accomplishments include a gold medal in MTech from Anna University, and a master’s in public policy from King’s College, London, providing him with a solid foundation for innovative governance.

Throughout his tenure in the Kerala government, Rajamanickam has been deeply committed to addressing environmental challenges and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Notable initiatives like Ente Kulam Ernakulam for pond conservation and Anbodu Kochi for disaster relief underscore his dedication to sustainable development and community engagement. His efforts have garnered recognition, including the prestigious ‘Best District Collector Award’ from the Government of Kerala, acknowledging his outstanding contributions to administration and public service.

Rajamanickam’s commitment to environmental stewardship has been acknowledged by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which lauded his initiatives as best practices in youth volunteering for disaster relief operations. Additionally, he has received the Jala Mithram award from the Youth Hostel Association of India (YHAI) for his significant contributions to water conservation. Guided by a holistic approach rooted in sustainability and inclusivity, Rajamanickam continues to lead efforts toward building resilient communities and a brighter future for all.

As a Humphrey Fellow, Rajamanickam aims to deepen his expertise in sustainable development and environmental conservation, focusing on water resource management and climate change adaptation. Committed to addressing India’s challenges, he seeks to contribute significantly to environmental sustainability.

Liyi Marli Noshi

Grant Category:	Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Climate
Home Institution:	Agrud Partners, Mumbai, Maharashtra
Host Institution:	American University, Washington, DC
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Ten months

Brief Bio:

Born into a family of 12 in remote Arunachal Pradesh, India, Liyi Noshi has defied societal expectations to become a lawyer and activist in New Delhi.

In her 16 years of legal career, Liyi has focused on social justice issues, particularly racial discrimination, child sexual abuse, rape, domestic violence and human trafficking, as an acclaimed champion for marginalized communities in India. She has secured legal representation for over 400 victims of sexual abuse and trafficking. Notably, her advocacy led to the establishment of a special police unit for Northeast Indians in Delhi. She has co-founded Helping Hands, a legal team working with Delhi Police to combat racial discrimination. Her dedication has also seen her collaborate with inspiring figures like senior advocate Indira Jaising, and various organizations which are working on issues of women and children.

Committed to long-term impact, Liyi seeks to empower vulnerable communities through policy changes and upskilling initiatives. As a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the American University, Washington, DC she is continuing with this endeavor. The fellowship will equip her with the knowledge and network to refine these goals and create lasting change.

Aashraya Seth

Grant Category:	Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program
Project Title:	NA
Field of Study:	Public Policy Analysis and Public Administration
Home Institution:	Impact91 NGO, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
Host Institution:	University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Grant Start Month:	August 2024
Duration of Grant:	Ten months

Brief Bio:

Aashraya Seth is the Founding President of Impact91 NGO, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh (https://www.theintelligentindian.org/). An award-winning social innovator and inventor of India’s most affordable sanitary pad vending machine, he has over eight years of experience in advising the British, Indian, and Australian governments, and leading the transformation of education and social systems. He is India’s Climate Ambassador, World Economic Forum Global Shaper, Yenching Global Symposium China Scholar, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper (SDG 5) and Queen’s Commonwealth Trust’s Young Leader. For his work on menstrual and educational rights of tribal and underserved people, he was placed amongst the top 80 social innovators in India, top 50 emerging policy leaders in the world, and honoured at the UK Parliament in 2024.

Apart from his professional accomplishments, Aashraya has professionally played 10m Air-Rifle shooting and writes for The Times of India. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and master’s in business administration. He has fellowships from University of Cambridge, University of Chicago, KDI School, and UN.

As a Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Aashraya will focus on public policy analysis and public administration. He aims to study evidence-based policy making to advocate for gender-friendly policies interpreting data that will contribute to menstrual equity and STEM for girls.