Shreya Shrikant Katre

Shreya Katre is a PhD candidate at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, where she works with Dr. Archana M Nair and Dr. Ravi K. She graduated from Walchand College of Engineering Sangli, Maharashtra, with a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and a Master’s degree in Earth System Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati. Her current research focuses on the geological carbon sequestration in selected rock formations of India. The goal of her research is to estimate the carbon storage potential of Indian basins and to identify novel carbon storage pathways using various geophysical and geochemical techniques.

Throughout her career, Shreya has participated in many social activities, workshops, technical quizzes, and was rewarded on various occasions. She has also worked as a bridge designer on a Metro rail project while working at STUP consultants Pvt. Ltd. She has presented her research at many national and international conferences through travel grants and has published in peer-reviewed journal and book chapters. Apart from this, Shreya is a Marathi language writer and poet and takes a special interest in Indian classical music.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellow, her primary objective is to contribute to the science of carbon mineralization in ultramafic and basaltic rocks which paves a path to its applications in carbon management technologies. She will study the kinetics of carbonation and enhanced carbonation techniques to provide insights to the geochemistry of CO2-water-rock interactions. The application of this technology extends to in-situ carbon dioxide storage and ex-situ carbon dioxide removal methods.

Digvijay Singh Negi

Prof. Digvijay S Negi is an A ssistant P rofessor at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, Maharashtra. Before joining IGIDR, he was a postdoctoral F ellow at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi. Prof. Negi obtained his Ph D in E conomics from the Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, and a Master’s in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi.

His introduction to academic research happened at the ICAR-National Institute of Agricultural Economics and Policy Research as a research associate. Ever since then, he has been interested in seeking solutions to multiple policy challenges faced by Indian agriculture. His primary research areas are agricultural economics, international trade, risk and insurance, and development economics. More recently, pushed by student collaborators at IGIDR, he has started venturing into other related areas of research which include health and nutrition and issues in cultural norms and gender.

Prof. Negi has published several research articles in reputed national and international journals. He also won a graduate student travel grant from the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association (AAEA) to attend the annual AAEA (2018) conference in Washington DC; and travel support from the International Association of Agricultural Economics to attend the 30th International Conference of Agricultural Economists (2018), Vancouver, Canada.

For his Fulbright-Nehru project, he plans to study the viability and applicability of satellite imagery and remotely sensed data in designing index-based crop insurance contracts suitable for Indian farmers.

Rohit Mukherjee

Mr. Rohit Mukherjee is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. He is working on various aspects of condensed matter physics with a focus on the topological transport signatures in strongly correlated systems. He graduated from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda Centenary College in Kolkata with a bachelor’s degree and has a master’s degree in physics from IIT Kanpur. In August 2022, Mr. Mukherjee was a visiting student at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Trieste, Italy.

Mr. Mukherjee is a teaching volunteer at PRAYAS, an initiative by IITK students to assist underprivileged school children near the university. He also enjoys traveling and meeting new people from different backgrounds and cultures. He is passionate about educating the general public about science and science communication.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Mr. Mukherjee is exploring topological spin transport in frustrated magnetic systems, such as spin liquids. A deeper understanding of these exotic states of matter can also shed light on the physics of the pseudo-gap phase in high-temperature superconductors, which is one of the biggest open questions in the field of condensed matter physics as well as fault-tolerant quantum computing.