Field of Study USA: Biology

Kelsey Gray

Dr. Kelsey Gray, PhD, is an educator and writer specializing in genetics, molecular biology, and intercultural science communication. She earned her BS in biomedical science from the Ohio State University before completing her PhD in genetics and molecular biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where her doctoral research focused on the molecular mechanisms of spinal muscular atrophy. Following her doctoral work, Dr. Gray served as a postdoctoral fellow with the Emory-Tibet Science Initiative (ETSI) at Emory University.

A cornerstone of her international work was her first Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship (2019–2020) at Drepung Loseling Monastic University, Karnataka, India. During this fellowship, she engaged in deep intercultural exchange, teaching biology courses and collaborating with Tibetan scientists to conduct culturally responsive educational research. Dr. Gray’s professional trajectory includes serving as an assistant professor and the assistant director for the Grand Challenges Initiative at Chapman University, as well as working in the private sector as a regulatory medical writer. As the senior instructional content developer for ETSI, she leads the development of the ETSI bilingual digital learning platform. Her extensive publication record reflects interdisciplinary expertise, spanning from protein biochemistry to the nuances of monastic science learning and metacognition.

Dr. Gray’s Fulbright-Nehru project, “A Two-Way Exchange: Buddhism and Science in Modern Tibetan Monastic Education,” is supporting science education for monastics in India through three integrated initiatives. She is leading a workshop to train monastic leaders on the ETSI Online Learning Platform in order to foster digital literacy and expand curriculum reach. She is also conducting a Human Health seminar series across five monastic institutions, connecting clinical research with monastic interests. Further, she is teaching an advanced biology teacher training course, utilizing modules on immunology and epigenetics to equip monastics with specialized pedagogical skills for future sustainable instruction.

Srinivasan Durairaj

Dr. Srinivasan Durairaj is a molecular biologist, educator, and scholar of inclusive STEM pedagogy with nearly three decades of teaching experience in India, Fiji, and the United States. He serves as professor of biology at Richland Community College in Decatur, Illinois, where he teaches biology and microbiology, and promotes student success through learner-centered, accessible instruction.

He earned his PhD from Bharathiar University, India, and has taught in a variety of academic settings, from small classes to large introductory courses, serving diverse student populations. His work centers on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), active learning, and AI-supported teaching in undergraduate STEM education, with a strong commitment to equity, inclusion, and student engagement.

Dr. Durairaj’s Fulbright-Nehru project is implementing UDL-based teaching in three undergraduate biology courses at Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education in Tamil Nadu, India. Through faculty workshops, curriculum co-designing, and the creation of an open-access digital toolkit, the project aims to strengthen inclusive STEM pedagogy, improve student engagement and mastery, and establish sustainable institutional practices aligned with India’s National Education Policy 2020 reform goals, while deepening academic collaboration between the United States and India.

Rumaan Malhotra

Dr. Rumaan Malhotra is a wildlife biologist with a background in endangered species conservation. More recently, he has been interested in the spatial ecology of human-tolerant species. Currently, he studies how various human impacts interact in their effects on native carnivores such as foxes and small wildcats. In particular, he is interested in the role of domestic dogs in driving native carnivore space usage. He earned his PhD from the University of Michigan, and his bachelor’s from Drexel University. Dr. Malhotra carried out his doctoral work in Southern Chile, where he found that agricultural landscapes were preferentially used by dogs, which affected where native foxes were found. As an avid photographer, Dr. Malhotra always has a camera in hand to document the landscapes, in which he works, and their wild inhabitants.

Dr. Malhotra aims to be studying the movement ecology of free-ranging domestic dogs in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh. He will be determining if distinct groups of dogs can be identified by their movement behavior, and if their movement corresponds with where threat of disease spillover is concentrated for humans and wildlife (specifically, rabies and canine distemper), with the spatial use of wildlife, and with livestock mortality.

Trevor Price

Dr. Trevor Price, PhD, FRS, is an expert on the effects of climate on the distribution of species. He has a bachelor’s degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a PhD in quantitative genetics from the University of Michigan. He is a tenured faculty member in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago

Dr. Price teaches courses in environmental ecology and biostatistics. His book, Ecology of a Changed World (Oxford University Press, 2022) summarizes the threats and challenges to the natural world in the 21st century. It forms the basis for the undergraduate courses he teaches to both biology majors and biology non-majors.

Dr. Price’s general research interests are in the distribution of biodiversity across the Himalaya and in the Indian subcontinent wherein he asks questions such as: why are there twice as many species in the east Himalaya (e.g. Sikkim) than in the west Himalaya (e.g. Himachal Pradesh)? Why are there more species in the mid-elevations in the Himalaya than at lower or higher elevations? What are the ongoing impacts of climate change and land-use change on the distribution of bird species? To tackle these questions, he studies birds and trees and uses various molecular techniques to assess the relationships among species and populations. He has published on these issues in journals such as Nature, Science, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

Dr. Price is a former Guggenheim and Mercator fellow at the University of Cologne (2004). In 2016, he was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2022, he became a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Dr. Price’s Fulbright-Kalam project is building on the baseline data collected from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Himachal Pradesh, on bird abundances. The goals are to: extend research on birds in the breeding season in Himachal Pradesh, especially integrating the work by students from the host institution; expand the research from birds to birch trees, because birch is so important to the local communities; monitor bird populations in the winter in the Indian peninsula; teach at the University of Ladakh; and visit several institutions to disseminate findings and to learn more about what others are discovering.

Martha Weiss

Prof. Martha Weiss is a professor of biology at Georgetown University where she directs the environmental biology major and co-directs the environmental studies program. She received a BA in geological sciences from Harvard University, a PhD in botany from the University of California, Berkeley, and postdoctoral training in insect behavior from the University of Arizona, Tucson. Her research – deriving from a close observation of nature – centers around experimental exploration of questions in insect ecology and plant–animal interactions. Her topics of investigation have included floral color changes as cues for pollinators; learning and memory in butterflies; the retention of memory across metamorphosis; and the indirect ecological consequences of periodical cicada emergences. In her teaching, she prioritizes opportunities for active learning and engagement; she believes that while thoughtful pedagogy is an important foundation for instruction in any subject, it is particularly critical in STEM fields where traditional, memorization-based methods of teaching have been known to discourage participation. Outside of research and teaching, she enjoys hiking and spending time outdoors, botanizing, foraging for edible plants, and working with fibers and textiles.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Prof. Weiss is investigating the behavior, movement, and sensory ecology of ant-mimicking arthropods in areas around Bengaluru and Thiruvananthapuram. In one of the prime examples of adaptation by natural selection, a diverse array of insects and spiders exhibit a remarkable resemblance to ants, mimicking them in both morphology and behavior, and thereby gaining protection from predators that actively avoid ants. She is also offering field-based workshops to students at Azim Premji University on plant–insect interactions; besides, she is participating in pedagogical workshops on “ungrading”, a relatively new assessment strategy that moves the focus away from testing and instead puts learning at the center of higher education.

Jeffrey Withey

Prof. Jeffrey Withey received a BA in biology from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan. He also did postdoctoral work in bacterial pathogenesis at the University of Michigan. In 2006, he joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit and now holds the rank of professor.

Prof. Withey’s research has focused on enteric bacterial pathogens, primarily Vibrio cholerae, the cause of human cholera. He has studied the regulation of V. cholerae virulence and identified factors in the human gut that can enhance or suppress virulence. In recent years, the focus of Withey’s lab has moved to studying environmental reservoirs for V. cholerae and other human pathogens, including Shigella, Salmonella, and the adherent-invasive E. coli. To facilitate these studies, he has developed models for these enteric bacterial pathogens in a natural aquatic host, the zebrafish (Danio rerio).

In his Fulbright project in India at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), Prof. Withey is developing new environmental models for Campylobacter and Enterotoxigenic E. coli in zebrafish, together with his Indian collaborators. These pathogens cause millions of cases of severe diarrhea per year, both in the developing world and in the U.S. In particular, childhood diarrhea in the developing world is highly associated with stunting, which can cause lifelong effects on health. The environmental life cycles of these pathogens are poorly understood and the goal of the research is to determine how they survive and thrive in environmental niches such as fish. Wild fish, both from nearby waterbodies and from fish markets, are also being examined to determine if major human enteric pathogens are carried in their guts. The long-term goal of these studies is to facilitate bioremediation to reduce or eliminate the major causes of diarrhea in the developing world.

Vasanthy Narayanaswami

Dr. Vasanthy Narayanaswami is a professor of biochemistry in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at California State University Long Beach (CSULB). She obtained her PhD in chemistry (biochemistry) from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, did a postdoctoral training as an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at the University of Dusseldorf in Germany, and a research associateship at the University of Alberta, Canada. Her research work involves investigating the role of apolipoprotein E (apoE), the cholesterol transport protein, in relation to cardiovascular ailment and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), two major global biomedical issues. She employs a combination of biochemical, molecular, and cell biological, as well as spectroscopic approaches to examine the role that dysfunctional high-density lipoprotein (HDL) (aka “the good cholesterol”) plays in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. She also studies the role of oxidative stress on HDL biology and its function in the amyloidogenesis process in AD brains at the molecular and cellular levels. Besides, her research group evaluates the use of HDL nanodiscs as drug-delivery and targeting vehicles.

Dr. Narayanaswami has over 75 publications in peer-reviewed journals, several with students as co-authors. In 2017, she received the title of Fellow of the American Heart Association (FAHA) from the American Heart Association (AHA) for her meritorious contributions and commitment to AHA’s mission. She has received several awards and honors in recognition of her research and scholarly activities. Noteworthy among these are the 2020 Faculty Research Award from the California State University Program for Education and Research in Biotechnology and the 2020 CSULB Outstanding Professor Award.

Dr. Narayanaswami is an ardent advocate of equity and diversity in biomedical research and directs several federally funded programs that are designed to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion in research.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Narayanaswami is addressing the etiology of AD. She is engaged in investigating the physiochemical aspects of amyloid plaque formation, a hallmark feature of AD, using the sophisticated mass spectrometry and imaging tools at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Hyderabad in India. This project has significance also because it calls for combining forces and initiating collaborations between two major educational and research organizations.