Praveen Pathak
| Grant Category: | Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowships (Research) |
| Project Title: | Democratizing experimental science: An affordable smartphone-powered kit for a billion students |
| Field of Study: | Education Policy and Planning |
| Home Institution: | Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| Host Institution: | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory , Livermore, CA |
| Grant Start Month: | March 2026 |
| Duration of Grant: | Nine months |
Brief Bio:
Dr. Praveen Pathak is a Scientific Officer at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai, a premier national institute dedicated to research and development in science and mathematics education. He has twenty years of experience in science education research, focusing on student misconceptions, teaching-learning methods, and designing hands-on activities and experiments from middle school to undergraduate physics. Dr. Pathak plays a key role in India’s Physics and Junior Science Olympiad programs, where he is involved in selecting, coaching, and mentoring the Indian team for the International Olympiads. He is also part of the NCERT textbook development team, contributing to creating science education resources for schools across India. He strongly believes in teaching through hands-on experiences and is passionate about science popularization, regularly contributing to scientific writing in Hindi to make science accessible to a wider audience.
Dr. Pathak’s recent work has focused on developing low-cost, smartphone-based experimental kits to improve science education, especially in schools with limited laboratory resources. By leveraging mobile sensors, his research aims to bring affordable hands-on learning experiences to students and teachers.
During his Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, Dr. Pathak is designing and evaluating a scalable smartphone-powered experimental kit, integrating it into school curricula to foster experiential learning. He will also conduct teacher workshops and collaborate with educators in the US to assess the impact of smartphone-based experiments on student engagement and learning outcomes.