Home Institution USA: Columbia University

Rachel Sondgeroth

Rachel Sondgeroth is an interdisciplinary scholar and professional in interreligious engagement. She recently received her master’s degree in religion from the Union Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Columbia University. Her research interests include the sociology of religion, methodology studies, and more specifically, faith-based approaches to organizing community service. She also studies how religious communities mobilize to strengthen their communities through both internal and interfaith initiatives.

For the past nine years, Rachel has been working on bringing diverse communities together to talk, listen, and connect. During both her BA and MA programs, she led interreligious initiatives, programs, and student organizations. Later, she worked for three years for the Arizona State University’s Project Humanities initiative, supporting the research of Dr. Neal Lester and facilitating events on topics such as religion and gender justice in an effort to dispel myths on religious doctrines and dogma; she was also part of intercultural seminars of the project. At the Union Theological Seminary, Rachel studied justice issues pertaining to interreligious diversity in the United States. Outside of interreligious engagement, she is working towards learning more about indigenous traditions, folk practices, and place-based spiritualities in the American Southwest.

Rachel’s Fulbright-Nehru project is conducting research exploring the methodologies, outcomes, and cultural norms around organizing faith-based community service projects in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Through case studies, interviews, and surveys, the research is cataloging the methods of faith-based service initiatives in Mumbai and quantifying their successes and challenges. By studying these practices, she is hoping to gain insights that will help improve their efficacy. The intended outcome of the project is the mobilization of millions of people to serve their communities, thereby fostering peace and unity among them.

Wasa Ball

Wasa Ball graduated from Columbia University with a BA in linguistics and philosophy, and a minor in anthropology. Her research experiences include experimental linguistics fieldwork as an NSF-IRES fellow in Guadeloupe with Dr. Isabelle Barrière, conducting empirical studies on the understudied French-based Creoles, as well as corpora analysis as an NSF-REU research assistant at the AI4CommSci lab with Dr. Joshua Hartshorne, documenting the endangered languages of Taiwan. Other work experience includes two semesters as a teaching assistant. Her interests lie in the interdisciplinary investigation of language, wherein she traces the global grammatical traditions of linguistics and philosophy to diversify and deepen cross-cultural and cross-historical understanding about the field.

Wasa’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is honing in on the legacy of Sanskrit as a language central to the development of linguistics as a field of study, particularly through vyakarana, or grammatical study in ancient India. She is working primarily with the texts of key grammarians like Panini, Yaska, and Bhartrhari to track the history of linguistic analysis across phonology, morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, and the philosophy of language in the early explorations of human language surfacing in Vedic scholarship and in the traditions of methodological linguistic exploration. Based in Pune, Maharashtra, at Deccan College’s Department of Sanskrit, the project, through literary analysis and synthesis of original Sanskrit sources, is tracing the contributions of Sanskrit linguistics to shed light on its cross-historical and cross-cultural impacts. The project is also seeking innovative ways to apply ancient knowledge to today’s global issues in theoretical linguistics.

Paul Ward

Paul Ward is a recent graduate of Columbia University in New York City, with a bachelor’s degree in American history. Paul’s undergraduate studies focused on 18th-century revolutionary America, with an emphasis on constitutional law and nation building. He has also been studying Italian for the past two years and hopes to continue learning it during and after his Fulbright grant.

Paul began his teaching career with the New York City Urban Debate League in 2019 and has been interested in education ever since. As both a teacher and administrator, Paul helped the largest debate league in New York put on weekly tournaments that involved thousands of students from across the city. A debater since high school, Paul enjoys discussing world news and trends, and tries to implement these exercises into his lessons whenever he can.

In the area of education access, Paul participated as a teaching fellow with the nonprofit, Breakthrough Collaborative. At Breakthrough, he managed his own daily classroom and created a unique social studies curriculum for his class of middle school students in the Boston public school system. Paul’s curriculum challenged students to reflect on the American Dream and their role as citizens, and he is excited to personally reflect on these topics from a different perspective while abroad.

Outside of the classroom, Paul is interested in music and sports. He has played bass in jazz and rock bands for more than 10 years and is eager to bring this expertise abroad to teach others about the role of music in American culture. He is also an avid runner and completed his first half-marathon this April. In India, he looks forward to staying up late to watch his favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, play live back home.

Paul’s grant period in India will be the first time he has ever lived abroad, and he cannot wait to meet lots of interesting people and to see the world from a new perspective.

Courtney Fulcher

Courtney Fulcher graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York in 2021 where she majored in comparative literature. She worked as a classroom and administrative assistant at The Red Balloon Early Learning Center, a community preschool in West Harlem. She previously studied abroad, in India, through the NSLI-Y Hindi Academic Year Program 2016–2017 and in the fall of 2019 through the University of Wisconsin where she conducted an independent research project on alternative early childhood education in Varanasi. While in Varanasi, she studied traditional Banarasi pit-loom weaving under Salim Sahib, a weaver in Sonarpura, a weaving center in the city. Courtney is also an on-air host at WKCR-FM, a non-commercial radio station in New York City. Among other shows, she regularly programs for Raag aur Taal, a weekly showcase of classical Hindustani music.

Prior to Fulbright, she worked at a publicity agency as an audio business coordinator, working with companies in both the entertainment and audio industries.

Stuti Shah

Stuti Shah is a third-year doctoral candidate at Columbia Law School in New York. Her dissertation focuses on re-imagining crime and punishment in India through subaltern and feminist lenses. It engages in a critical rethinking of law and penal institutions that harm people and communities.

With a dual undergraduate degree in law and humanities from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, Stuti spent three years at Trilegal, a leading law firm in India, focusing on data protection and intellectual property law. Her academic journey then took her to the U.S., where she earned her master’s in law from Columbia Law School. In the U.S., she has been a research fellow with the African American Policy Forum, Children of Incarcerated Caregivers, Reprieve, and the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. She has also provided research assistance to Sanctuary for Families and Broadway Advocacy Coalition.

Stuti has written editorials and op-eds for reputable publications like The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Quint, The Wire, Deccan Herald, Firstpost, and Bar and Bench. Her article, “Beyond Caste Carcerality: Re-Imagining Justice in Sexual Violence Cases”, will soon be featured in the UCLA Law Review. Additionally, her piece, “Incarcerated Women and their Children in Indian Prisons”, appeared in the Economic & Political Weekly.

Stuti’s Fulbright-Nehru project is critically analyzing the experiences of incarcerated mothers – disproportionately belonging to the marginalized castes and classes – who are allowed to raise their children in Indian prisons till the children are six years old. This project is addressing the gap between existing law and scholarship on motherhood and state protection for children in prisons, and realities on ground. It is also engaging in a comparative study of Indian law and practical challenges with the U.S. model of motherhood in prisons where babies born to incarcerated women are promptly separated a year or so after their birth.

Anousha Peters

Anousha Peters previously worked with Labor Notes, an organization which educates workers who are democratizing their trade unions, and with United for Respect supporting retail employees at Amazon and Walmart who were espousing the cause of dignity in their workplaces. Anousha studied sociology at Columbia University where she conducted research with professors Adam Reich and Hana Shepherd. Before transferring, she attended the liberal arts program of Deep Springs College in California for two years. Originally from Gainesville, Florida, Anousha’s professional and political interests have focused on marginalized and precarious workers. She enjoys running, watercolor painting, listening to podcasts, and bringing together and hosting friends.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Anousha is studying women’s participation in platform gig work in India wherein freelance workers are connected to consumers through online marketplaces. She is studying the reasons behind women taking up such work, the workingconditions they encounter, and their feelings of safety and agency in their work. While the study is focusing on Bengaluru, its learnings will find use across India and beyond since gig work is growing globally and is often conducted on transnational platforms.