Lenya Schmidt-Neuhaus

Chapel Hill, NC

Grant Category:	Fulbright-Nehru Student Research Program
Project Title:	Policy and Incentives to Reduce Per-fluoro-alkyl Compounds ‘PFAS’ in Indian Supply Chains
Field of Study:	Public Health
Home Institution:	University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC
Host Institution:	Indian Institute of Management - Lucknow, Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Grant Start Month:	September 2025
Duration of Grant:	Nine months

Brief Bio:

Lenya Schmidt-Neuhaus holds a chemistry and environmental justice degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her academic and professional interests relate to sustainability. Lenya works in consulting – earlier in transportation planning, now in the clean energy space. As a deputy project manager dealing with energy advisory and environmental, social, and governance services, she manages projects that help clients to reduce their emissions and access cleaner energy. She also conducts policy analyses in this field. Lenya seeks to leverage this experience of analyzing policies and managing project flows to conduct research.

Lenya’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying the PFAS that are found in common household products. Prolonged and repetitive exposure to these chemicals can lead to a variety of negative health effects. The research will provide policy recommendations to limit exposure to PFAS, provide existing policy examples that can be used as a starting point to draft PFAS regulations, and identify which key actors have the influence to make changes to the supply chains.