Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad Archives

Meghna Rohit Amin

Ms. Meghna Rohit Amin is a doctoral candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. Her doctoral research examines the intergenerational occupational shift among the head-loading Mogaveera women who constitute the matrilineal fishing community of coastal Karnataka in India. Primarily based on fieldwork and ethnographic narratives, the study locates the constant deliberation of the Mogaveera women with fishing which is their caste occupation.

Ms. Amin’s dissertation for her master’s degree in Sociology from the Manipal Centre for Philosophy and Humanities was also on the Mogaveera women. The research study is titled “Putting Food on the Table: A Period Study on the Head Loading Mogaveera Women.” After her graduation, she joined an advocacy group where she worked as a digital campaigner and ran campaigns for the rights of marginalized communities, combating air pollution, and raising awareness about climate change. She also taught English to high school children in Udaipur, managed a restaurant in Manipal, and served as a barista at a cafe in Bengaluru.

She has been selected for the award of ICSSR full-term centrally administered Doctoral Fellowship for 2021-22. As a Fulbright-Nehru recipient, Ms. Amin is keen to collaboratively interpret ethnographic narratives and accounts at the intersectionality of caste, class, and gender in relation to occupational mobility within the discipline of native anthropology.

Ayushman Bhattacharya

Ayushman Bhattacharya is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He is working on “Nutrient Removal and Recovery from Domestic and Industrial Wastewater using Bio-electrochemical Systems” under the supervision of Dr. Pritha Chatterjee. He has over four years of research experience, and has worked on different microbial fuel cell configurations, autotrophic and heterotrophic denitrification, nutrient recovery, microalgae, and life cycle assessment. Ayushman received the prestigious Prime Minister Research Fellowship in 2021 and the Mitacs Globalink Research Thematic Award in 2023. He has published four research papers and two reviews in reputed international journals and has written five book chapters.

Ayushman’s understanding of environmental challenges sparked his research interest when he attended technical talks and pursued internships during his undergraduate days. He has a BTech in environmental engineering from GGSIPU, New Delhi. He has worked as a trainee engineer in the Delhi Pollution Control Committee where he was actively involved in framing environmental policies and implementing environmental laws.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology University, Rapid City, SD, Ayushman is understanding the optimal operational condition to enhance microalgae microbial fuel cell performance for simultaneous nutrient removal, CO2 sequestration, and bioelectricity generation. Further, he intends to produce biofuel using spent microalgae to facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. He expects that the outcome of his research will promote commercial upscaling and prevent nutrient loading in water bodies to maintain ecological stability in the aquatic ecosystem.

Sadaf Nausheen

Sadaf Nausheen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. She completed her MA in women’s studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and BA in political science from the University of Delhi. Such training has given her an interdisciplinary background which is reflected in her doctoral work that sits at the intersection of gender studies and urban studies. As an ethnographic study, her research focuses on narratives of Muslim women in understanding gendered experience of urban public space.

Nausheen has presented her work at several national and international conferences. She has also co-authored and published in a peer-reviewed international journal and other online fora. Sadaf has been a co-recipient of the Centenary Decade Undergraduate Research Grant funded by Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Additionally, she undertook funded research as part of the Sponsored Studies Project by the Indian Association for Women’s Studies that allowed her to imbibe practices of reflexivity and empathy in doing qualitative work. Her doctoral research looks at the experiences of urban spaces by analysing the exclusions, claim making processes, and belongingness of Muslim women in Hyderabad, India. Focusing on how Muslim women navigate their access to public space in the city, the research attempts to mainstream marginalised voices in theorising women’s experiences. Furthermore, it takes into account the differences within the category of the ‘Muslim woman’ in order to bring out a heterogeneous understanding of the same.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Sadaf is working on the methodological and analytical aspects of her Ph.D. project, while analysing the scope of intersectionality through various frameworks of study.

Shankar Gugoloth

Shankar Gugoloth is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Liberal Arts, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. He completed his master’s in political science from the University of Hyderabad, Telangana, and his bachelor’s in technology in production engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirapalli, Tamilnadu. Shankar’s research interests include youth studies, education, youth aspirations, and politics. His work also elucidates the concept of “becoming” and the aspirations of marginalised youth through the idea of SWAEROS. In the past, Shankar held a senior tech associate position at the Bank of America, Hyderabad, for three years. His passion for social science led him to move from engineering to social science. He has written blogposts on various websites and presented his works at several national and international conferences.

Shankar’s doctoral thesis explores the question of the construction and cultivation of various identities within the single social category SWAEROS/ “The Society” students. He looks at aspiration formations among Dalit and tribal college-going youth (boys and girls) in Telangana, particularly among students enrolled in the Telangana Social Welfare Educational Institute Society (TSWREIS) schools in southern India. His doctoral work is ethnographic and uses visual ethnography to understand youth aspirations. TSWREIS is a state government-funded group of residential educational institutions for Dalit and tribal students in the state of Telangana.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Shankar is engaging with some of the alumni of TSWREIS, to gain valuable insights into the experiences of marginalized students from the “Society” schools studying or working in the U.S. This will help him to explore the role of TSWREIS in shaping aspirations of marginalized communities, and collaboratively write and interpret an ethnographic account of youth aspirations and state engagement with the marginalized community.