Field of Study India: Urban and Regional Planning

Aayushi Bengani

Ms. Aayushi Bengani is doing a PhD in the Department of Geography at the University of Delhi. Her doctoral research explores urban land management by Indian Railways using ethnographic and archival methods. It builds on her sustained engagement with urban informality through her study and work experiences in Mumbai. These consist of her MA in the School of Media and Cultural Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, her internship with the daily The Indian Express, and her work with development organizations Azim Premji Foundation and YUVA.

A Senior Research Fellow at Delhi School of Economics, Aayushi has consistently presented her research on “vacant” railway lands in Mumbai at eminent urban workshops and conferences globally. These include Urban Theories Across Borders’s Workshop on Researching the Ordinary City, Bangkok and Urban Affairs Association’s International Conference on Urban Affairs, New York, for which she received a fully-funded international travel grant from Indian Council of Social Science Research.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow, Aayushi is undertaking a comparative study of the railways in the U.S. to understand the current framework of railway land monetization in India. She is analyzing how lands along the railroads in New York City are currently managed and have historically been monetized. Her research aims to provide insights into the changing role of the state with regard to public lands, contributing to the scholarship on land transformation and state-making. Her interest in learning through storytelling drives her in research and otherwise.

Mukunda Upadhyay

Dr Mukunda Upadhyay is a senior policy expert, researcher, and programme implementer with more than a decade of experience across sectors, including disaster risk reduction, humanitarian response, transboundary water governance, climate change adaptation, migration, and urban issues. He has worked with government agencies, the UN system, and international organizations in dynamic, multi-stakeholder, and multidisciplinary settings. Some of his notable contributions include policy design to strengthen resilient systems, supporting effective emergency responses, designing technology-enabled systems for risk reduction, developing recovery frameworks for long-term resilience, and promoting dialogues for progressive transboundary water governance.

Dr. Upadhyay has contributed significantly to various transboundary water governance initiatives in South Asia, particularly to promoting citizen science, strengthening early warning systems, and implementing sustainability models, thereby fostering a sense of stewardship among key stakeholders. His current research interests focus on understanding transboundary riparian urban spaces in relation to shared risks, vulnerabilities and resilience. He completed his PhD in Population Studies from the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, under the guidance of Prof. (Retd.) Shrawan Kumar Acharya.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Upadhyay seeks to examine the conceived, perceived, and lived dimensions of transboundary urbanism in the Mahakali river basin in the Indo-Nepal border region. The research examines water governance, migration, trade, economic systems, and resilience-building in the context of the shared environmental risks faced by urban communities in these dynamic transboundary spaces.

Mir Sumira

Dr. Mir Sumira works as Project Scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad’s Centre for Godavari River Basin Management and Studies in the Department of Civil Engineering. Her expertise lies at the intersection of disaster risk reduction, climate resilience, and sustainable development, built on years of field research in Jammu & Kashmir. An MSc gold medalist in disaster management (2015–2018), she completed her PhD in the subject from the University of Kashmir (December 2024). She was selected as a CDRI Fellow (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure), 2023–2024 Cohort, where she designed and implemented protocols to strengthen systemic disaster resilience in mountainous regions by institutionalizing multi-stakeholder networks, processes, and mechanisms. She has certified training in geospatial technologies and applications from the Department of Space at National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO. Her work reflects a strong commitment to bridging scientific research, community resilience, and policy innovation, with the aim of fostering disaster-resilient and climate-adaptive societies.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Sumira is working on developing a digital land resilience model, a GIS-based computational tool designed for rapidly urbanizing Himalayan cities such as Srinagar. It integrates multi-hazard assessments, climate change projections (CMIP6), urban growth models (CA–Markov, SLEUTH), and policy simulations (agent-based modelling) to identify risk hotspots and test nature-based vs engineered solutions. The final goal is to develop a scientifically validated, policy-ready resilience model that helps Indian mountain cities make climate-adaptive decisions. Working with US experts allows Dr. Sumira to bring cutting-edge digital resilience planning to the Himalayas.

Lakshyayog

Dr. Lakshyayog is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), working on a British Academy-funded collaborative project between the University of Oxford and NLSIU. He obtained his undergraduate degree in geography from the University of Delhi in 2015, followed by a postgraduate degree in geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2017. He was awarded a PhD from JNU in May 2025. His doctoral research was funded by the Junior and Senior Research Fellowships from the University Grants Commission. Previously, he worked with development sector organizations such as the World Resources Institute India and ActionAid India.

Dr. Lakshyayog’s research interests lie at the intersections of sports and urban development in India, specifically examining the promotion of everyday physical activity and leisure in cities. With research articles and chapters published in reputed journals and edited volumes, he has presented his research work at several international conferences. In March 2025, he was selected as a Writing Urban India Fellow 3.0 of the Urban Studies Foundation, UK and NLSIU.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Lakshyayog will explore the ways in which cities in India and the United States use sport to reshape urban space, mobilize real estate investment, and instrumentalize global visibility. Through a comparative study of Delhi and Ahmedabad in India and Atlanta and Los Angeles in the US, Dr. Lakshyayog aims to examine the emerging phenomenon of sports cities.

Dr. Anand

Dr. Anand is an online urban and community forestry consultant at Fair Forests Consulting LLC, Michigan, USA specializing in urban forestry, ecosystem services, and climate resilience. He earned his MSc in natural resource management and PhD in environmental sciences from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. His doctoral research focused on ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, and governance of urban green spaces.

Dr. Anand has worked with organizations including the USDA Forest Service and has extensive expertise in i-Tree Tools, GIS and urban ecological assessment. He has published in reputed national and international journals. He was honored with the 2025 i-Tree Innovation Award by the Urban and Community Forestry Society, USA.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Anand is collaborating on international comparative research on urban greening and large-scale tree planting initiatives. His work focuses on plantable urban space, governance, community engagement, and landscape preferences in urban forestry. Dr. Anand is also contributing as co-editor to an academic volume on urban greening.

Mamu Hage

Ms. Mamu Hage is the Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate of West Siang District in Arunachal Pradesh. She is a 2017 batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer. Her previous stints have included being Collector and District Magistrate of North Goa District with additional charge as MD & CEO of Panaji Smart City Corporation. As District Magistrate and Collector in various districts and states she has conducted two Legislative Assembly Elections and Parliamentary Elections, ensured implementation of key Government schemes and initiated several developmental projects.

During her stint in West Siang, Mamu focused on district developmental goals such as Clean Aalo Initiative and urban transformation through a range of measures. She has been instrumental in securing various awards and accolades for the district in urban innovation, health and wellness and election management.

Mamu is the first Apatani Tribe IAS officer and only the second from Arunachal Pradesh to be selected as a Humphrey Fellow under the Fulbright Scholarship.

Mamu is also a swimming enthusiast. She holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University, and a master’s in Applied Psychology from South Campus, Delhi University. As a Humphrey Fellow, Mamu is studying urban sanitation, urban roads and mobility, and how to make cities smart.

Krupa Rajangam

Dr. Krupa Rajangam is a humanities-based heritage scholar and conservation practitioner. In her research, she draws on anthropology and social geography to interpret nature-culture conservation practices, particularly the construction of socio-cultural place identities, urban-rural geographies, and tourism imaginaries. Her work is community-engaged, with a focus on public dissemination of research.

Dr. Rajangam earned her bachelor’s in architecture in 1999 from the RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru and her master’s in conservation studies in 2005 from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York, UK. In 2020, she completed her doctorate in conservation studies at the National Institute of Advanced Studies and Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Dr. Rajangam is the Founder-Director of a collective called “Saythu… Linking People and Heritage” and an editorial board member of the Taylor & Francis journal, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (CMAS). She runs an immersive field school that is driven by and teaches critical theory, experiential field-based education, and interdisciplinary methods of learning.

Through her Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Rajangam is working to contribute to global debates on archaeological and heritage place-making, social geography, and social violence as outcomes of UNESCO World Heritage inscription, boundary demarcation, and management. The need for such studies is pressing urban-centric development of historic landscapes, contrary to the intent of practice and policy, is deepening social marginalization.

Utsav Shukla

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.

Chanchal Yadav

Ms. Chanchal Yadav, an Indian Administrative Service officer, belongs to the 2008 batch of the Arunachal, Goa, Mizoram, and Union Territories (AGMUT) cadre. A postgraduate in political science from the University of Delhi, she is known for her innovations in public service delivery systems. She has diverse experience working in various capacities in the Union Territory of Daman, the border state of Arunachal Pradesh, the capital city of Delhi and the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

As Secretary, New Delhi Municipal Council, she brought substantial improvement in civic services delivery, leveraging technology. She successfully steered the organization towards becoming the first municipal body in country to go cashless. Her concerted efforts towards the cleanliness of the city resulted in NDMC becoming the first Open Defecation Free (ODF) urban local body of Delhi; the organization continuously remained amongst the top cities in the Swachh Sarvekshans by the Government of India.

Under her leadership, the district administration of Changlang more than doubled its annual revenue collection, successfully rolled out livelihood missions and registered a steady decline in insurgency-related incidents. She was conferred the Governor’s Gold Medal for her meritorious public service. As Special Secretary to the Lieutenant Governor, Delhi, she effectively coordinated with agencies responsible for the civic administration of the capital and contributed to the drafting of Delhi’s Master Plan Document 2041.

Ms. Yadav is passionate about urban governance and as a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, she aims to gain specialization in the sector and orient her civil services career around it. She loves to be in nature and gardening is her favorite hobby.

Priyanka Jamwal

Dr. Priyanka Jamwal is currently working as a Fellow in the Centre for Environment and Development, ATREE, Bengaluru. She completed her B. Tech in Civil Engineering from NIT Hamirpur (1997–2001) and Masters in Environmental Engineering from Punjab Technical University, Chandigarh (2001-2003) with several distinctions and her doctoral degree in Environmental Engineering and Management from IIT Delhi (2003–2008). She broadly works in water resource management with a focus on water quality. Her work focuses on identifying contaminant sources in surface water bodies, modelling the fate and transport of contaminants in urban hydrological systems and assessing the risk to human health due to exposure to contaminants. Her empirical work has focused on quantifying microbial load from point and non-point sources in urbanising watersheds. Her work on the fate of trace metals and nutrients in urban hydrological systems has identified gaps in India’s water quality regulatory frameworks.

She has made significant contributions in the field of environmental pollution and human health risk assessment. Her work also focuses on understanding the groundwater sanitation nexus in the peri-urban spaces that lack piped water supply and centralised sanitation infrastructures. She applies interdisciplinary approaches to understand the factors that drive humans to interact with the environment in a certain way that impacts water resources. She is also interested in developing design principles for the deployment and scaling of Nature-based solutions (NBS) to address water pollution issues in urban and rural areas.