Field of Study India: Climate

Pallavi Rachel George

Pallavi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad where she specializes in the Public Systems Group (PSG). After three years of working as a policy researcher in the development sector, she turned to academia to follow her passion for research, teaching, and mentoring.

Pallavi’s research examines climate resilience in coastal cities with a focus on developing inclusive planning mechanisms and outcomes. Her work stands at the intersection of public policy, urban planning, and climate sciences, viewing coastal cities as socio-ecological systems with complex interdependencies that must be captured in urban climate resilience planning and policymaking. In her research, Pallavi utilizes various quantitative and qualitative methodologies, such as social network analysis, computational online text analysis, structural equation modelling, policy document analysis, and statistical methods.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow, Pallavi is studying select coastal cities in the U.S. and India to comparatively examine resilience planning processes and outcomes to further the common goal of achieving inclusive resilience in our cities. She did her bachelor’s in economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and her master’s in public policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Her studies in Singapore were supported by a scholarship from the Li Ka Shing Foundation. She has presented her work at various conferences, both national and international. In her free time, Pallavi enjoys practicing Bharatnatyam, playing badminton, painting, and travelling.

Shreya Shrikant Katre

Shreya Katre is a PhD candidate at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, where she works with Dr. Archana M Nair and Dr. Ravi K. She graduated from Walchand College of Engineering Sangli, Maharashtra, with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Earth System Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. Her current research focuses on the geological carbon sequestration in selected rock formations of India. The goal of her research is to estimate the carbon storage potential of Indian basins and to identify novel carbon storage pathways using various geophysical and geochemical techniques.

Throughout her career, Shreya has participated in many social activities, workshops, technical quizzes, and was rewarded on various occasions. She has also worked as a bridge designer on a Metro rail project while working at STUP consultants Pvt. Ltd. She has presented her research at many national and international conferences through travel grants and has published in peer-reviewed journal and book chapters. Apart from this, Shreya is a Marathi language writer and poet and takes a special interest in Indian classical music.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow, her primary objective is to contribute to the science of carbon mineralization in ultramafic and basaltic rocks which paves a path to its applications in carbon management technologies. She will study the kinetics of carbonation and enhanced carbonation techniques to provide insights to the geochemistry of CO2-water-rock interactions. The application of this technology extends to in-situ carbon dioxide storage and ex-situ carbon dioxide removal methods.

Amritha M. S.

Amritha M. S. is a research scholar at the Department of Botany, University of Calicut, Kerala, India. Her research is supported by CSIR in the form of a junior research fellowship, and her research is jointly supervised by Prof. (Dr.) Jos T. Puthur and Dr. Kishore Sridharan.

She is a proud alumna of St. Mary’s College, Thrissur, Kerala, India and St. Thomas College (Autonomous), Thrissur, Kerala, India, where she did her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Botany, respectively. For her doctoral research, she is studying the role of “Nanoscale graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) priming of rice (Oryza sativa L.) for enhancing abiotic stress tolerance”. She has publications in top-tier journals to her credit.

She is attempting to develop a cost-effective and farmer-friendly technique for protecting plants against various abiotic stresses using nanostructured priming agents, under the supervision of her guides. Apart from her research, Amritha enjoys teaching students and is an excellent mentor who has been successful in inspiring some of her students to pursue careers in science and research while working as Assistant Professor. Her hobby is to identify plants and learn about the flora of different places.

The Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship will help her explore how nano-structural material priming agents such as g-C3N4 and their relatively useful forms can help plants cope with adverse environmental conditions, as well as the molecular mechanisms behind this plant tolerance. It also allows her to examine how the study results will benefit farmers

Ammoose Kunjanparampil Jayan

Ammoose K. Jayan is currently conducting her research under the DST-Inspire Junior Research Fellowship at the Department of Geology, Central University of Kerala, Kerala. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology and Water Management with first-rank from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala. She is also a first-rank holder during her Master’s in Geology from Central University of Kerala, India. Her doctoral research mainly focuses on the paleoceanographic investigations of sediments from the Bay of Bengal (BoB). She studies the assemblages of planktonic foraminifera and its shells’ geochemical composition in order to understand the impact of climatic and environmental changes on modern and fossil organisms, particularly during the Holocene.

Ms. Jayan has published her research findings in the International journal Marine Micropaleontology and presented her work at several National and International conferences. In 2021, she was awarded with the TMS Grant-in-Aid, by The Micropaleontological Society, London. In the same year, she also participated in a scientific expedition to BoB Onboard Sagar Kanya Research Vessel, to collect gravity core samples for her research. During her Master’s, she was one of the recipients of the Indian Academy of Sciences’ Summer Research Fellowship, 2018, and had conducted research at the National Institute of Oceanography, Visakhapatnam.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Fellow, Ms. Jayan will work on the fate of the East India Coastal Current (EICC) during the Holocene and H1 event, correlating with excessively strong and weak phases of ISM variability. Another goal of this research is to test any offset in the elemental and isotopic composition of the morphotypes of Globigerinoides ruber, a mixed-layer planktonic foraminiferal species, from the BoB.

Manoj Hariharan

Manoj Hariharan’s love of science began with a trek in fall, with his father, when his eyes captured the changing color of leaves in the midst of sheets of rain that turned paths into bewitching rivulets. Pursuing a doctorate nurtures this fascination scientifically. It also brings a deeper glimpse into all the good nature can do, from uncovering our survival to understanding Earth’s processes that shape our world.

At the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, Hariharan covers biosphere-atmosphere interactions and intends to understand how climate, pollution, atmospheric and geographic sciences shape and are shaped by the terrestrial carbon cycle. He tries to picture them mainly with the “eye in the sky.” He is a graduate of the Department of Geography at the University of Madras, Chennai, and a Project Fellow at the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun. He loves stargazing in his downtime.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow, Hariharan anticipates spending time with climate models at a supercomputer cluster to understand the dynamic traits of carbon. He will focus on the sensibility of the terrestrial ecosystems to environmental change, by attributing the processes to observed changes in the carbon pools using an integrated data platform. He expects the outcomes to draw him closer to better quantifying the trajectory of terrestrial carbon pools. Besides, he plans to explore the starry nights of the Colorado mountain trails and eagerly awaits experiencing a snowy Christmas eve.

K.R.S. Preethi Meher

Dr. K.R.S. Preethi Meher is Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Science, School of Technology, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu. She completed her Ph.D. at the Materials Research Center, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru in 2012.

Dr. Meher was the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window WILLPower (EMECW) visiting research fellow in 2010 at the Laboratoire Structures, Properties and Modeling of Solids Laboratory (SPMS), UMR CNRS 8580, CentraleSupélec, Paris-Saclay University, France. She was also a CNRS postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratorie CRISMAT, Caen from 2013-2014 and later served as Research Associate at the Materials Science Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu. She has been awarded UGC-DAE-CSR Collaborative Research Scheme for 2022-2025 and is a life member of the Materials Research Society of India (MRSI).

Dr. Meher’s research laboratory at CUTN focuses on the development of new multifunctional materials and electroceramics for energy production, harvesting, and sensing applications. Currently, she works on synthesis, structural and property correlations in novel perovskite halide compositions for photovoltaics. She has published 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented several papers at international and national conferences and workshops apart from serving as an invited speaker at various Faculty development programs.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate scholar for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Meher is studying novel layered perovskite halide compositions that exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties coupled with very good stability for an enhanced lifetime of the photovoltaic device.

Vasant Matsagar

Prof. Vasant Matsagar is Professor and Dogra Chair at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi. He obtained his Ph.D. from IIT Bombay in structural engineering.

Prof. Matsagar is serving on editorial boards of reputed journals in various capacities: Editor-in-Chief of Indian Society of Earthquake Technology (ISET Journal) and the Indian Concrete Journal; Associate Editor for “Computational Methods in Structural Engineering” section” of Frontiers in Built Environment; and an editorial board member of Bulletin of New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers: Structures and Buildings, Advances in Civil Engineering, International Journal of Protective Structures, and the journal Architecture, Structures, and Construction. Prof. Matsagar is Founding Director and Fellow of Council of Vibration Specialists, and has received fellowships from Humboldt Foundation, Erasmus, ASEM-DUO India, FEIT Visiting Academic among others. He is also a DAAD (India) Research Ambassador and an elected fellow of the Indian National Academy for Engineering (INAE), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the Institution of Engineers (India), and the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology.

Prof. Matsagar is interested in multi-hazard protection of structures using advanced engineered materials. During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence at Michigan State University (MSU), Prof. Matsagar is developing a technology for manufacturing biocomposites from agro-residues for gainfully using them in built infrastructure at large-scale as construction materials. By developing a suitable agriculture waste management scheme and implementing it in practice and contributing to sustainability through decarbonized circular economy, this collaborative research work strives for the development of hazard resilient infrastructure in modern cities and towns in both the U.S. and India.

Sonam Sonam

Dr. Sonam obtained her doctorate in earth sciences from the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar in 2019, and her B.Sc.(H) and M.Sc. in geology from Hansraj College, the University of Delhi in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Her specializations are in the field of fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, and geospatial science.

Dr. Sonam was awarded the CSIR-Research Associate grant in the year 2021 and is currently a CSIR-Research Associate at IIT, Gandhinagar. She is also recipient of the CSIR-UGC JRF fellowship in the field of earth, atmospheric, ocean and planetary Sciences 2013-2018, and the DST-SERB International Travel grant to present her work at the European Geosciences Union (EGU), 2018. After her Ph.D., she worked as a post-doctoral Research Associate on the arid zone rivers and biodiversity, as a part of the Gujarat state climate change project under the National Mission for Strategic Knowledge on Climate Change, DST, Government of India.

Dr. Sonam’s Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Postdoctoral Research project is regarding environmental flow modelling for sustainable management of river systems. To understand the gravity of the crisis associated with degraded river health and to ensure sustainable development for all stakeholders, a combined socio-hydro-geomorphic approach, including indigenous knowledge and geospatial techniques, is needed. However, this integrated strategy lacks well-defined methodology. Dr. Sonam is using geospatial tools and integrating them with indigenous knowledge to model environmental flow needed to ensure a healthy functioning river: geospatial techniques are used to analyze river morphological susceptibility to exogenous forcing and indigenous knowledge is used to explain a river’s flow requirements at local scales.

Aashna Sharma

Dr. Aashna Sharma is Senior Project Associate at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun. She completed her B.Sc. (Hons) in 2011 and M.Sc. (Hons.) in 2013 in zoology from Panjab University (PU), Chandigarh. She has a Ph.D. from the Department of Zoology, PU and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), under joint supervision of Dr. Y.K. Rawal and Dr J.A. Johnson. Her doctoral research focused on assessing the climate change and invasion impacts on native Himalayan fishes, and on developing state-of-the-art models for their conservation.

Dr. Sharma has worked in various capacities at WII, contributing to the assessment of climate change impacts on various taxa of lotic ecosystems. She qualified the UGC-NET and GATE exams, apart from receiving several honors and awards, including the Best Popular Science Story award under the DST-Augmenting Writing Skills for Articulating Research (AWSAR) and best oral presentation awards at various research seminars. She has served as an invited speaker for various national and international seminars. Dr. Sharma is also Review Editor of Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Large-bodied freshwater fauna or megafauna are witnessing extensive declines in the Anthropocene, and climate change is expected to exacerbate the situation owing to their extinction-prone traits. Their defaunations are more feared in nations like India that are biologically diverse yet anthropically populous. Through the Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Postdoctoral Research, Dr. Sharma aims to identify conservation hotspots for megafauna in India by assessing the impacts of future climate and land-use changes.

Bokinala Moses Abraham

Dr. Bokinala Moses Abraham is National Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Prof. Jayant K. Singh at IIT-Kanpur, which focuses on fusing density functional theory simulations with modern machine learning approaches to rationalize and accelerate the chemical design and discovery of novel materials. Dr. Abraham obtained his first-class B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in physics from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Thereafter, he moved to the University of Hyderabad for a Ph.D. degree, where he pursued his own research ideas that enabled him to tackle multidisciplinary problems, such as those related to the study of materials at high-pressures, and understanding the physico-chemical properties of high-energy density materials.

Dr. Abraham has contributed to nearly 45 international publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has received several prestigious and competitive fundings for attending international conferences, which includes the RSC travel grant and the International Travel Support grant offered by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India. He also received funding from high parallel-computing HPC-Europa3 mobility program (2022) for a research stay of 3 months at the University of Barcelona (UB), Spain with Prof. Dr. Francesc Illas’ group. Dr. Abraham’s work towards design and development of highly efficient catalysts for CO2 conversion and hydrogen evolution reaction are seminal contributions to the field of catalysis.

Dr. Abraham is designing and developing a library of unique and fascinating MXene-supported single atom catalysts by fusing modern machine-learning approaches with experimental techniques during the Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Postdoctoral Research. Dr. Abraham believes that the scientific knowledge generated from this project would be utilized as a reference for CO2 reduction into hydrocarbon fuels, thereby helping meet real-world energy demands in a sustainable manner.