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Mondira Ray

Dr. Mondira Ray is a pediatrician and aspiring health informatician. After studying economics and religion at Swarthmore College, her fascination with human behavior and societal structures culminated in a career path to medicine. She completed the pre-medical requirements at Bryn Mawr College’s Postbaccalaureate Pre-Medical Program, received her Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of Pittsburgh, and recently graduated from pediatric residency at the University of Washington in 2022. Through several prestigious research training awards, she has developed expertise in computational biology and data science, and is passionate about improving the accessibility and usability of health data to improve the health of children, particularly in marginalized communities. After her Fulbright-Nehru project, she plans to attend a fellowship in Clinical Informatics.

Although India has made progress in improving its staggering rates of maternal and child mortality and morbidity, wide regional variation remains. Key to addressing these disparities is the digitalization of health records. At this time, only a fraction of primary care centers in India uses an electronic health record (EHR). The primary aims of Dr. Ray’s Fulbright-Nehru project are to support the continued evolution of EHR and to develop a resource to help community health organizations adopt their own EHR platform.

Mark Balmforth

Dr. Mark Balmforth is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Historical and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto, Scarborough. His work analyses inherited inequality in histories of encounter between South Asians, Europeans, and Americans. His first book project, titled “Schooling the Master: Caste Supremacy and American Education in British Ceylon,” charts the entwining of caste, nation, and gender in American missionary schools in Ceylon and was awarded the History of Education Society’s 2021 Claude A. Eggertsen Prize. Dr. Balmforth’s second major research project, tentatively titled “Buried Legacies: Slavery and Caste in the Indian Ocean,” rethinks connections between enslavement, caste, and migration in the Indian Ocean by tracing the 300-year odyssey of an oppressed-caste Tamil community from the 17th to the 20th centuries. His work has been published in the History of Education Quarterly, Review of Development & Change, CASTE: A Global Journal on Social Exclusion, and the International Journal of Asian Christianity.

Legacies of slavery shape conversations around the world about contemporary social and economic injustice. Over the last decade, scholars of South Asia have started to consider slavery’s impact on contemporary lives in the subcontinent, countering the dominant public and scholarly reliance upon terms like “bonded labor” or “agrestic servitude.” Contributing to the ongoing global conversation about slavery’s legacy, Dr. Balmforth’s Fulbright-Nehru project asks: what can the history of Dalit dye root-digging communities in India reveal about the intertwined careers of slavery and caste in South Asia?

Nicholas Shafer

Nicholas Shafer is a current Marshall Scholar at the University of Oxford and the Institute of Development Studies, where he is completing graduate courses in modern Middle Eastern studies, international development, and public policy. A former desk officer covering Yemen and the Gulf with the U.S. Agency for International Development, Nicholas has spent the past five years living and working across Europe, the Middle East, and in Washington, D.C. at the intersection of international development and foreign affairs from various vantage points, including the U.S. policy community, INGOs, and a fintech startup in London. His research principally examines the dynamics of rising powers in the international system, with a regional focus on the Middle East and Indian Ocean community. Nicholas has also written on the adoption and deployment of decentralized currencies in fragile state environments such as Lebanon.

A native of Silicon Valley and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in anthropology, Arabic, and public policy, Nicholas plans to continue into a career in foreign policy and public service. He is also a Boren Scholar and John Gardner Fellow; besides, he co-leads the mentorship program for the Community College Global Affairs Fellowship funded by the Gates Foundation which provides community college students with the resources and networks they need to reach their full potential in foreign affairs, public service, and the world of fellowships and scholarships.

For his Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, Nicholas is exploring the spectrum of opinions amongst Indian foreign policy actors on the utility of extra-regional alliances to achieving India’s foreign policy priorities in four key areas: energy security; food security; technology ecosystems; and national security. In a more contentious and complicated geopolitical environment, he is studying current and next-gen perspectives on alliances and approaches to foreign affairs to navigate the early 21st century. His project is also focusing explicitly on the emerging mini-lateral relationships and collaborations, including the I2U2 Group and the Quad, as well as on broader thinking within the Indian strategic planning community.

Lilith Saylor

Lilith Saylor is interested in challenging the assumption that technology and rural spaces exist in contradiction and believes that rural spaces exist as integral, active contributors to the globalized world. An at-large scholar with a background in economics and development studies, as well as family ties in Kentucky’s Appalachian region, Lilith is both excited by and critical of technology’s role in rural development. She graduated from Goucher College in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2020, with majors in economics, political science, and international relations. She went on to work in startups as one of the founding team members of BioSolution Designs, and also wrote critically on biometric technology and its political and socioeconomic entanglements in her paper, “Suspicion Encoded: Women of Color and Biometric Technology in the United States”, which was published by California Polytechnic State University’s sprinkle journal. She has also spoken on the importance of building technology by considering the right to privacy, in her workshop, “Built to Protect”, at Technica Hackathon 2021 and TechTogether Atlanta 2022.

Lilith’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining the factors influencing active rural digital engagement by comparing the interests, needs, and values of smallholder family farms in Karnataka to the digital technologies they consume. Bengaluru’s digital agritech startups depend on their ability (and obligation) to engage with smallholders as decision-making consumers, thereby giving researchers an unprecedented chance to reevaluate existing frameworks for encouraging rural digital participation. While exploring the mutual influences between smallholder family farms and digital technology, Lilith’s project is also highlighting the ways that rural regions are shaping their own digital future with their unique concerns, interests, and economic decisions.

Kasey Jacob

Kasey Jacob earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology and sociology, with minors in gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, and Asian, Middle Eastern studies from The State University of New York at Cortland, New York.

In her undergraduate career, Kasey participated in her university’s study abroad program in Mangaluru, India. During this program, Kasey took sociology and religion courses at St. Aloysius College. She also completed an internship at Prajna Counseling Centre, a non-government organization involved in supporting, educating, and housing children from various challenging backgrounds. Kasey’s responsibilities as an intern included providing after-school support for youth and gathering qualitative data for the center’s reporting purpose.

Following her return from India, Kasey earned her remaining course credits through an internship at West Hill Refugee Welcome Center in Albany, New York. In order to assist in the long-term transition needs of refugee and immigrant families from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Burma, Kasey led a number of youth programs to support the social, academic, and personal growth of adolescents.

After graduation, Kasey was hired as a program coordinator at West Hill Refugee Welcome Centre. In this full-time role, she coordinates adult English-language courses for single mothers; recruits, trains, and supervises university-level interns and volunteers; supports additional adult and youth programming; and evaluates program effectiveness.

Kasey is passionate about immigrant and refugee support services, community building, and advocating for accessible and equitable educational opportunities for migrant and displaced youth. After completion of her Fulbright-Nehru scholarship award, Kasey hopes to earn a master’s in educational policy and leadership.

Kasey’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is implementing a peer-mentorship program for female adolescents so that they make a successful and stable transition into adulthood. Her research involves a group of female college students and a female adolescent group. The goal of the research is to connect the adolescent group to local organizations as well as develop several programs that support their social, academic, and personal growth.

Esmeralda Goncalves

Esmeralda Goncalves is an apparel designer who studied at Rhode Island School of Design. Her studies were inspired by the conviction that fashion is a work of art and that each garment is a performance and something to look closer at. While working at Hasbro and Cashmerrette, she found her love for woman’s design driving her to focus on women’s studies. This soon led her to work at McCann Erickson. During her time there, she learnt the value of minor details, and uses that lesson in her work today. Whether it is traveling to learn at leather tanneries or learning the indigenous textile techniques of Mexico, no detail is ever too small for her to not find beauty in.

Esmeralda’s Fulbright-Nehru project is researching Phulkari, an endangered embroidery tradition found only in Punjab, India. This tradition has been passed down from mother to daughter for generations, thereby carrying with it familial stories. Esmeralda is taking a Punjabi research course to be able to communicate with the woman she is working with. At Panjab University, she is working with the curatorial staff to learn about all the extinct techniques in embroidery’s history. Following this, she is set to have a hands-on experience in the art of making Phulkari.

Akshali Gandhi

Akshali Gandhi is a senior transportation planner for King County Metro in Seattle, Washington. In this capacity, she has worked on bus-stop improvements, capital planning, parking policy, mobility hubs, and bicycle/pedestrian paths across the Puget Sound region. Earlier, Akshali was a consultant for Nelson\Nygaard’s Washington, D.C. office and a transportation planner for the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In total, she has seven years of professional work experience in the transportation planning field.

Akshali holds a bachelor’s degree in community and regional planning from Iowa State University and a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Cornell University. She is Indian American and has published research on economic development challenges along commercial corridors in immigrant neighborhoods, with a focus on Devon Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. Akshali is passionate about pedestrian safety, street design, and urban mobility for vulnerable users.

Traffic fatalities are a leading cause of death among young people in India. As a transportation professional, Gandhi is interested in researching the role street design and public space interventions play in road safety for infants, children, and caregivers. A new program in Pune retrofits urban streets into pedestrian zones for children to walk, bike, and play. For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Akshali is conducting a public life study of selected road safety projects to monitor how children and caregivers use such street interventions. Working with the Institute for Transportation Development and Policy India (ITDP India), she is compiling her findings into a case study and toolkit of best practices to share with planners and policymakers.

Leslie Shampaine

Ms. Leslie Shampaine has been telling stories throughout her professional life, from the ballet stage where she performed across the world during a 13-year career, to the television screen where she has produced award-winning programs for PBS, Discovery Channel, A&E, CBS, and Al Jazeera.

Her background in the arts led her to produce and direct the feature documentary, Call Me Dancer, in 2023. The film has received critical acclaim and an award from the New York Women in Film & Television for Excellence in Documentary Directing.

Ms. Shampaine’s work includes cultural and educational programming. For eight years, she was part of the production team that created the biographical films for the Emmy Award-winning Kennedy Center Honors. She was senior production executive at Al Jazeera English in Washington, D.C., where she managed current affairs programming in North America, including the award-winning investigative series, Fault Lines and People & Power, and the discussion programs, The Stream, Upfront, and Empire.

Ms. Shampaine produced the PBS programs One World: India; Closer to Truth: Cosmos, Consciousness and Meaning; and Avoiding Armageddon. Her other productions include Who Betrayed Anne Frank (Discovery Channel) – winner of a Telly, a Cine Golden Eagle, and a Gold Remi at the Houston World Fest; DC Cupcakes (TLC); the Smithsonian Networks series’ Seriously Amazing Objects; and Fireworks (A&E, with George Plimpton), which was nominated for an Emmy and an ACE.

She has continued to work as a teaching artist to youth from underserved backgrounds and to seniors with physical disabilities. She has taught dance to children at the Lighthouse for the Blind; worked with seniors to record their personal stories for NPR’s StoryCorps; and taught movement to people with Parkinson’s disease through Dance for PD.

Ms. Shampaine’s Fulbright-Nehru project is seeking to understand the methodologies of arts education with a focus on digital storytelling as it is directed toward underserved youth. Her research is looking at the blossoming of the digital format and how it is impacting storytelling, teaching, communication, and most significantly, participation in a worldwide community. Besides, she is starting the social-impact stage of her film project, Call Me Dancer, to create culturally relevant videos targeted toward youth, to be used by teachers and arts educators. She is also creating short-form videos with curriculum guides for teachers who engage students in meaningful examinations of relevant social issues.

Samira Patel

Samira Patel graduated with an anthropology degree from the University of Chicago. She is especially committed to social justice and sensitive to how policies often exclude the most vulnerable people. She has spent almost a decade learning how this is particularly acute in climate- and environment-monitoring programs, having worked at the science–policy interface both at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and at the Center for Space Policy and Strategy. She joined the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge as a master’s student to critically examine how the science–policy interface and digital data infrastructures impact local communities. This led her to publish a dissertation, The Rise of a Technoscientific Third Pole: Climate Science, Data, and Culture in the Himalayan Cryosphere. She has also written and spoken about various issues related to the “Asian Arctic”; the politics of data sharing and data infrastructures; remote sensing and outer space policies; and pluralistic understandings of cold and icy places. She is currently a Gates Cambridge Scholar at SPRI, where she is pursuing a PhD in geography.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, Samira is undertaking research for her PhD dissertation exploring the notions of climate futures in Ladakh. The inhabitants of Ladakh have long navigated the constraints of water in their high-altitude desert environment. Now, they must adapt to a shifting landscape due to climate change. Samira’s project is particularly focusing on the extent to which communities – local communities and communities of scientific practice – help shape and navigate these climate futures. Using ethnographic methods, she is examining how Ladakhi people leverage various scientific and/or local environmental knowledge to navigate the myriad challenges and anxieties of a warming planet.

Srinivas Reddy

Mr. Srinivas Reddy is a scholar, translator, and musician. He studied classical South Asian languages and literatures at UC Berkeley and currently teaches at Brown University and IIT Gandhinagar. His research in South Asian studies ranges over multiple disciplines, including translation studies, history, cultural studies, and musicology, but his foundation lies in the reading and translation of classical Indian texts. He has published numerous scholarly articles and four books: Giver of the Worn Garland (Penguin, 2010); The Dancer and the King (Penguin, 2014); The Cloud Message (Penguin, 2017); and Raya (Juggernaut, 2020). His forthcoming book, Illuminating Worlds: Anthology of Classical Indian Literature, is set to be released in 2024. Mr. Reddy is also a concert sitarist and spends his time performing, teaching, and conducting research around the world. His performances can be viewed at: http://www.sankalpana.org/

Mr. Reddy’s Fulbright-Nehru project is exploring the ways in which traditional oral repertoires of raga music were transcribed into written manuals for general instruction in late colonial India. Early texts like Maula Bakhsh’s Sangitanubhav (1888), Hazrat Inayat Khan’s Minqar-i-Musiqar (1912), and V.N. Bhatkhande’s Hindusthani Sangeet Padhdhati (1910–32) all enshrined traditional raga music compositions in fixed and printed notational forms. Mr. Reddy is revisiting this rich archive of educational materials with the critical ear of a practicing musician and a modern-day raga music educator.