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Karun Salvady

Mr. Karun Salvady is a distinction graduate in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin. He has an extensive research background in translational medicine, drug delivery and pharmaceutics and has worked at some of the premier medical institutes in the U.S. including the Baylor College of Medicine, Dell Medical School, National Institutes of Health and UT Austin College of Natural Sciences during his undergraduate tenure. He has delivered award winning presentations across the world at decorated institutions such as Harvard University, The University of Texas at Austin, Butler University, Qatar University, The National Institutes of Health, The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Conference on Medicine and Religion. He is also a published scientific author in the field of translational medicine.

Aside from his academic and professional achievements, Mr. Salvady is also a reputed South Indian classical (Carnatic) percussionist, an exponent of the mridangam, and has performed in over 500+ concerts with many of India’s leading musicians across the U.S., U.K. and India. Some of the noted musicians he has accompanied in the field of Indian classical music include Ganesh Rajagopalan (of Ganesh-Kumaresh fame), Flute Raman, AS Murali and Madurai R. Sundar, to name a few. He has also collaborated with musicians from genres such as Western classical, jazz, flamenco and pop, conducted workshops and lecture-demonstrations, recorded for albums and currently teaches South Indian percussion to earnest students in the US. He is currently completing a master’s degree at Goldsmiths, University of London in the unique Music, Mind & Brain program focused on music psychology and the cognitive neuroscience of musical behavior, where he is conducting cutting edge research on the intersection of music and the brain. His interests outside of academics and music include traveling, NBA basketball, food and spirituality.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Student, Mr. Salvady will be working on interdisciplinary research with aims to investigate the impact of South Indian Classical percussion listening on mental health outcomes. This project aims to pioneer efforts in developing a novel music listening protocol using South Indian Classical (Carnatic) rhythms to potentially aid mental health outcomes of neuropsychiatric patients. Cognitive deficits and low mood are common amongst patients with Schizophrenia, Parkinson’s Disease and Stroke recovery. Research has shown that music listening interventions can have beneficial effects on outcomes of mental health, especially on mood and cognition. Carnatic music listening interventions have yet to be experimented, with a particular lack of exploration using the rhythmic components of such music. Combining these approaches may open the way for further investigation in this area.

Anagha Kikkeri

Anagha Kikkeri has a passion for education, community engagement, and public service. At the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, Anagha was the first woman of Indian descent to be elected as the student body president; she graduated from UT as a Distinguished Scholar in the liberal arts honors program in May 2021.

During her undergraduate years, Anagha garnered numerous honors, fellowships, scholarships, and awards. She was recognized as the Outstanding Senior of the Class of 2021 and was also selected to be part of the Dean’s Dozen by the Office of the Dean of Students. In 2020, she received the prestigious Hyperion Award for her exceptional contributions to the university community. Anagha was inducted into Pi Sigma Alpha and also became a member of the Order of Omega.

Anagha actively engages in extracurricular and community activities. She was a member of the LBJ Women’s Campaign School. She has held positions of leadership, such as the chairwoman of the Auditing Committee for the Texas State Society and the vice president of Diversity and Inclusion for the Texas University Panhellenic Council. Notably, Anagha delivered a commencement address to an audience of over 30,000 people at UT in 2021. She also performed a personal narrative of her life experiences as a woman in the show “Amplify”.

In terms of professional experience, Anagha has made significant contributions to the political arena. She worked as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion associate and also served as a Mobilization Program coordinator at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in Washington, D.C. Besides, she has served as a healthcare staff assistant to Senator Dianne Feinstein, thereby connecting with upwards of two million Californians.

Anagha’s other interests include boxing, painting, the Spanish language, mehndi, South Asian history, basketball, piano, and Frida Kahlo’s art.

Anagha’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is studying what young, urban, university-attending women believe about how they can break the glass ceiling in politics. For this, she is examining the structural causes behind the “glass ceiling”, the levels of political awareness, and the pathways forward for young Indian women. In this context, she is conducting interviews with women from diverse backgrounds. The project is significant because its results can help empower young women to shatter the glass ceiling.

Aruna Kharod

Aruna Kharod is an ethnomusicology PhD candidate at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. She holds an MMus in ethnomusicology (2021) as well as a dual BA in Hindi language and literature and South Asian studies, all from UT Austin. Aruna’s doctoral dissertation examines transnational exchanges and histories of the sitar-making industry. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Traditional Arts and has been generously supported by the Smithsonian Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology, the Presser Foundation, Texas Folklife, and UT Austin’s most prestigious doctoral research award, the Donald D. Harrington Dissertation Fellowship (2022–23).

As a performing artist, Aruna is trained in Hindustani music and bharatanatyam dance. She studied sitar under the guidance of Professor Emeritus Stephen Slawek, a senior disciple of the late Pandit Ravi Shankar. She is currently under the training of renowned sitarist Vidushi Sahana Banerjee. Aruna teaches and performs bharatanatyam in central Texas as part of her guru, Dr. Sreedhara Akkihebbalu’s Kaveri Natya Yoga School of Bharatanatyam. She has also studied bharatanatyam and odissi intensively in India. Besides, Aruna has performed and taught Javanese gamelan for over five years.

Aruna is an ethnographic storyteller who is passionate about intergenerational and community-based work. Her notable projects include leading a project on Partition Songs in the Indian-American diaspora (2021); being involved in a digital humanities resource program on American sitar-making (2022); and being part of a mentorship programming series for women PhD students (2023). Aruna is also a photographer and budding documentary maker who focuses on hereditary and traditional luthiers and artists in the U.S. and India, as well as on intergenerational South Asian-American life. As an arts educator, Aruna leads and develops programming for audiences in public libraries, schools, senior centers, and museums around central Texas. She has worked as an artist-in-residence (Blanton Museum of Art, 2017), public outreach and programming liaison (Humanities Texas, 2021), and as a qualitative research consultant (Jugal’s Literature Festival, 2023).

Aruna’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying sitar performance through individualized, immersive, traditional taalim, or training, under the tutelage of Vidushi Sahana Banerjee. She is also practicing the nuances of improvisatory techniques and musical theory as rooted in Banerjee’s distinctive interpretation of the Rampur Senia gharana.