Host City India: Cambridge

Pradeep Kodimana Ramakrishnan

Dr. Pradeep Kodimana Ramakrishnan is a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Prof. Gerd Bacher at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany since 2021. He obtained his integrated B.Sc., B.Ed., and M.Sc. in physics from the Regional Institute of Education, University of Mysore in 2014. He then received his Ph.D. in 2021, under the supervision of Prof. Ranjani Viswanatha, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru. Dr. Ramakrishnan’s doctoral work focuses on the design of quantum dots for optoelectronic applications.

Dr. Ramakrishnan received a fellowship under the Walter-Benjamin Program from the German Research Foundation. His research grant focuses on magneto-optical spectroscopy of single perovskite nanocrystals. He has published several research articles in reputed international journals. He is the winner of Gandhian Young Technological Innovation Awards (GYTI 2020) in the field of nanoscience and engineering. He qualified the GATE examination 2015, with an all-India rank of 74, and secured first rank in the country in the national entrance examination conducted by NCERT in 2008. His other scientific recognitions include the “Best ePoster Content and Discussion” award at the 2020 online conference Light Emission in Organic and Hybrid materials (LightEm) organized by nanoGe, and another best poster award at an In-House symposium 2018, JNCASR. He is also a winner of the Sony World Photography Awards, 2023.

Inorganic lead halide perovskite nanocrystals are in high favor among recent energy materials. However, the necessary inclusion of lead, a toxic element, raises a critical concern for future commercial development. Dr. Ramakrishnan is addressing this issue during his Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship. He is designing and synthesizing doped lead-free double perovskites and studying their spin dynamics using ultrafast magneto-optical spectroscopy. This project provides a promising avenue for lead free perovskite nanocrystals for use in high performance photophysical applications.

Pallavi Rachel George

Pallavi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad where she specializes in the Public Systems Group (PSG). After three years of working as a policy researcher in the development sector, she turned to academia to follow her passion for research, teaching, and mentoring.

Pallavi’s research examines climate resilience in coastal cities with a focus on developing inclusive planning mechanisms and outcomes. Her work stands at the intersection of public policy, urban planning, and climate sciences, viewing coastal cities as socio-ecological systems with complex interdependencies that must be captured in urban climate resilience planning and policymaking. In her research, Pallavi utilizes various quantitative and qualitative methodologies, such as social network analysis, computational online text analysis, structural equation modelling, policy document analysis, and statistical methods.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow, Pallavi is studying select coastal cities in the U.S. and India to comparatively examine resilience planning processes and outcomes to further the common goal of achieving inclusive resilience in our cities. She did her bachelor’s in economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and her master’s in public policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Her studies in Singapore were supported by a scholarship from the Li Ka Shing Foundation. She has presented her work at various conferences, both national and international. In her free time, Pallavi enjoys practicing Bharatnatyam, playing badminton, painting, and travelling.

Ashish Tiwari

Ashish Tiwari graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, West Bengal with a BTech and MTech in computer science and engineering in 2007. A 2012 batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, Ashish has held positions of ASP Jhansi, SP rural Varanasi, SP Mirzapur, SSP Etah, SP Jaunpur, SSP Ayodhya, Founder Commandant-Special Security Force (SSF), SP Election (Uttar Pradesh), and SSP Firozabad. He was recognized as one of the 40 promising global leaders in policing by the IACP (International Association of Chiefs of Police, U.S.A.), who mentioned him in their ‘40 under 40’ list in 2022. He also received the Young Alumni Achiever award from IIT Kharagpur.

Ashish is passionate about SMART (simple and sensitive, moral and modern, accountable, reliable and responsive, trained and technical) policing. He believes in technology, innovations, and entrepreneurial government with a people-centric approach. He has launched multiple technology initiatives to realize SMART policing, which have been institutionalized at the state level and have impacted millions of citizens. He is also a member of various committees, and has been a keynote speaker at many conferences on modernizing policing using technology. To empower women, Ashish has constituted a ‘green group’ of rural women to fight problems of drugs, alcohol, gambling, and domestic violence in various districts. Leveraging technology, under ‘Operation Smile’ in west Uttar Pradesh, Ashish has reunited hundreds of missing children and victims of child trafficking with their families. His innovative strategies in community policing, countering fake news, and digital governance have received public and professional appreciation and widespread media coverage. Ashish has received numerous accolades, including the FICCI smart police officer award, the SKOCH award, the gFiles governance award, triple DGP Commendation (silver, gold, and platinum) discs, and the State Award for Best Electoral Practices.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Ashish is engaged in developing innovative solutions for smart governance and smart policing at the intersection of technology, security, and development. He intends to work at both the federal and the state level to apply new technologies in security and governance.

Anchal Sharma

Ms. Anchal Sharma is a Ph.D. candidate at IIT Delhi. Her research encompasses tactile perception of objects in the visually challenged. Drawn towards innovations exercising imagination, scientific thinking, and strong user empathy, she has mentored and participated in diverse social innovation projects and won two awards by IISc, Bangalore and IIT-Delhi with her team. She has led and been a speaker in events propagating innovation including those by AIM, NITI AYOG.

She completed her M.Des. in Industrial design (from SPA, New Delhi) and interned at GVIC, PepsiCo, India. She was acknowledged for her thesis work for integrating cultural spatial forms in a unique product using principles of light and shadows to educate children about unity. The project was sponsored by the Design Clinic Scheme by GoI and NID and was featured as a finalist in Toycathon 2021 and TISDC 2018. During her B.Arch. she emerged as a 2nd ranker both for her thesis work on ‘a school for experiential learning’ and overall 5-year academic performance.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, she will analyse how to better convey three-dimensionality in two-dimensional tactile stimuli. Although layered and complex, she believes with continual deep-work and problem-solving acumen, this work can profoundly advance and contribute towards accessible STEM education for those without vision.

She believes in a multi-faceted growth and commends the perseverance sports can bring to life. She has played Throwball at National level and won silver medal (Badminton) at college level. Being perceptive towards life, she exercises self-expression through art, writing, and short videos.

Vidya Viswanathan

Ms. Vidya Viswanathan is an environmental policy researcher. She consults with multiple state agencies and NGOs as a domain expert. Currently, she is working with Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research (SAFAR) leading their national initiative of building accountability and transparency for common resource governance. In the past, she led the Environmental Justice Program at the Center for Policy Research (CPR), a leading policy think tank in Delhi. Ms. Viswanathan was CPR’s youngest Program Director. Under her leadership, the program restored common resources through improved regulatory compliance, thereby protecting farmlands and water bodies from industrial contamination in over 150 energy and infrastructure projects. She has also worked with the government through her engagement with the Ministries of Labor and Employment and of Rural Development.

Ms. Viswanathan is the co-author of several articles and papers that discuss the efficacy of environmental regulations in protecting ecology and managing social conflicts induced by land use changes on the ground. Her research interests include methods of strengthening environmental governance, including regulations, with a focus on building better and collaborative interfaces between citizens and regulators to promote India’s ecological security.

Ms. Viswanathan graduated top of her class and received numerous awards for her academic and non-academic achievements at the postgraduate level. She holds a Master of Arts in social work with a specialization in community organization and development practice from the prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, and a bachelor’s in economics from the University of Delhi.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Ms. Viswanathan aims to acquire specialized skills in policymaking and soft skills of leadership and advocacy. She is excited about experiential learning from a diverse and accomplished cohort that will help her refine the pathways of documenting, articulating, and building compelling insights from the grassroots into environmental policy design.

Vikram Vishal

Dr. Vikram Vishal is an Associate Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and an associate faculty in the Interdisciplinary Programme in Climate Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Mumbai. He leads the ‘Computational and Experimental Geomechanics’ group at IIT Bombay. Dr. Vishal worked at IIT Roorkee over 2013-16, during which he pursued the Fulbright-Nehru postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Dr. Vishal also serves as the Convener of the DST-sponsored ‘National Centre of Excellence in Carbon Capture and Utilization’ at IIT Bombay. He is a recipient of two national awards and holds the young scientist recognition from all major science academies in India. He is currently a member of the Indian National Young Academy of Sciences.

Dr. Vishal’s research interests are in the domains of geomechanics, carbon capture and sequestration, enhanced petroleum recovery and unconventional hydrocarbon systems.

During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship at MIT, he aims to develop an integrated risk assessment framework using experimentally validated simulations for CO2 storage in a mature oilfield in India. This research work will build on evaluating the storage readiness of specific fields in an onshore sedimentary basin. Detailed understanding of the barriers and their elimination will be key to successful deployment of carbon capture and storage in India, and advance their readiness levels.

Rajan Vishal

Mr. Rajan Vishal worked in the Reserve Bank of India after receiving his Master of Business Economics degree from the University of Delhi in 2005. Driven by his commitment to improve public service delivery at the cutting-edge level, he joined the Indian Administrative Service in 2008. He received the gold medal for the best study in rural development from the National Academy of Administration.

He has worked as District Collector in four districts for more than six years. As an administrator, he has worked in insurgency affected and the least developed areas of the country, implementing welfare programs, steering government campaigns for the marginalized and managing relief programs during natural calamities. He was awarded the Best Electoral Practices Award by the Election Commission of India in 2015, for increasing female voter turnout in Parliamentary Elections 2014 by 25 percent in Jalore District, with women from some villages having voted for the first time.

He also has experience in policy formulation in the health, cooperative, urban development, and finance sectors. He has played an important role in the formulation of impactful policies that have improved nutrition and health, strengthened the legal rights of women, empowering them as decision makers in Rajasthan.

A graduate program in public administration from a U.S. university will provide Mr. Vishal with the skills, knowledge, networking, and approaches needed to design potent policies to address the complex developmental challenges facing India. After completing the Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellowship, he would work on a range of issues: health, public finance management and women empowerment.

Garima Shekhar

Ms. Garima Shekhar is the founder of Evolving Being, a liberal arts-focused admissions consultancy (www.evolvingbeing.org). TechnoServe India, in partnership with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, selected her amongst the top 30 women entrepreneurs for an Accelerator Program in 2021.

In the past, she was a core member of the Founding Projects team that launched the undergraduate batch of Ashoka University, a pioneering Indian liberal arts and sciences university in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, and Stanford University among others. She was on the interview panel, along with the founders and faculty of the university, to shortlist students for the undergraduate and postgraduate program, Young India Fellowship. She has also offered consultancy to the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU). She has traveled extensively, met students from different walks of life, and discovered the transformative power of quality education.

Ms. Shekhar has studied Economics at Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi. She received full scholarship to pursue the Young India Fellowship at Ashoka University. At Welham Girls’ School, she scored the highest aggregate marks in grade XII and received several accolades: Academic Excellence Award by the Governor of Uttarakhand, the Khandelwal Shield for the Highest Aggregate, and the Faculty Trophy for Sustained Academic Excellence. When she gets time off work, she enjoys going on long treks, doing yoga, and learning new languages.

Through a graduate program in Education Leadership, Organization, and Entrepreneurship as a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, she hopes to support students around the globe in achieving their higher education goals.

Manasi Sahay Thakur

Ms. Manasi Sahay Thakur is an Indian Administrative Service officer with close to 13 years of experience. She is a mechanical engineer from the College of Engineering in Pune. After a brief stint in the private sector, she joined the Indian Administrative Services in 2009.

As Deputy Commissioner of Bilaspur, she successfully led a campaign against female feticide. She conceptualized and coordinated Muskan, an animated film on girl child rights, which has had over a million views on YouTube and has received awards and recognition at different international forums. Ms. Thakur also led a nine-day long rescue operation for rescuing trapped laborer in an under-construction tunnel in Bilaspur.

As Director, Women and Child Development, she was instrumental in drafting the first legislation in India dealing with the sensitive issue of early childhood care and education. She also functionalized the first One Stop Centre in Himachal Pradesh for women in distress.

As Director, Energy, Ms. Thakur helped improve the state’s revenue realization through power sale, spearheaded efforts for energy efficiency and successfully worked on policies to revitalize the dormant hydro sector. She has co-authored “The Power Tariff Case-A Tale of Two States” which is being used by the National Academy of Administration for training civil servants in Negotiation Strategy. She ensured steady supply chain of essential commodities during the Covid-19 lockdown and was also responsible for the safe transportation and evacuation of stranded migrants from Himachal Pradesh in Maharashtra and Goa.

By pursuing a master’s in public administration as a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, she aims to hone her policy making skills and better understand evidence-based decision making. She aspires to learn about global best practices along with leveraging of data and technology to become a more impactful professional and meaningful contributor back home.

Mir Mohammed Ali

Mr. Mir Mohammed Ali holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in political science. He was selected to the Indian Administrative Service in 2011 and assigned to the Kerala cadre.

Mr. Ali has served in various capacities in the state of Kerala. As Director of Land Records, he organized a first-of-its-kind collaboration between Google Maps and the state government to bring more than 60,000 public establishments online.

As District Collector of Kannur, he led 81 local governments in banning single-use plastics in 2016. When widespread misinformation derailed a vaccination program, he piloted ‘Satyameva Jayate’, an information literacy campaign that trained more than 100,000 students to consume information critically and disseminate it responsibly. During this time, he won five Kerala State e-Governance awards, including Best e-Governed District.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow at Harvard Kennedy school, he is focusing on acquiring the analytical skills needed for a career in evidence-based policy making. A firm believer in the capacity of information technology to make a difference, he seeks to interact with a global cohort to expand his understanding of positive technological interventions worldwide.

Mr. Ali is an avid cinephile who enjoys writing and directing short films. His film on Kannur Tourism was awarded the ‘Best Ad Film’ at an International Film festival. He also finds great joy in open-water swimming, kayaking and stand-up comedy.