Host City India: Ithaca

Prachi Shrikant Thatte

Dr. Prachi Shrikant Thatte earned her PhD from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, in 2018, where her research examined how multiple wildlife species move through human-modified landscapes. She holds a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Mumbai and an MSc in health science from the University of Pune.

Dr. Thatte received the 2019 Zeiss Wildlife Conservation Award. She worked as the Lead for Connectivity Conservation with WWF-India between 2019 and 2025. She spearheaded the creation of the Coalition for Wildlife Corridors, a multi-organization network dedicated to advancing connectivity conservation in India. Since 2025, Dr. Thatte has been working as an independent consultant on various wildlife conservation projects.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Thatte is examining the factors that influence the success or challenges of landscape-scale conservation initiatives. She is assessing social and institutional characteristics across initiatives at different stages to identify governance and collaboration practices that support effective conservation.

Suneetha Saggurti

Dr. Suneetha is currently an Assistant Professor in human resource management and organizational behavior at the Indian Institute of Management, Raipur. She holds a PhD in Management from XLRI-Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur and did her master’s from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Before joining academia, she spent seventeen years in human resources within the manufacturing industry. She was a Visiting Fellow at the ILR school of Cornell University from March-June 2025. She was a Fellow of International Humanistic Management Association (2024-2025).

Dr. Suneetha’s research centers on human flourishing, dignity, and well-being in organizational life, reflected in her doctoral thesis, Being Who We Are (Loving Beings) and Doing What We Know (Holding and Being Held): Reimagining Group Life and Leadership for Peace and Sustainability. Her current work explores the Ecozoic paradigm and Ecozoic leadership based on the work of Thomas Berry. Her work also focuses on micro-affirmations, the Keatsian concept of negative capability, and slowing down. She also works in critical pedagogy, examining how business education must be reimagined to confront the ecological and social crises of our time. She is trained in micro-phenomenology. She completed TECTU (Training in Embodied Critical Thinking and Understanding), an interdisciplinary European Erasmus+ program.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Suneetha is aiming to develop labor metrics and auditing practices for the construction industry, drawing from the more developed practices and metrics in apparel and footwear supply chains. The study will contribute to better due diligence practices and governance in construction supply chains.

Ayan Sarkar

Mr. Ayan Sarkar is a PhD candidate at the Division of Agronomy, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He completed BSc in Agricultural Sciences from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalaya (BCKV), West Bengal, in 2020, and MSc in Agronomy from ICAR-IARI in 2022. During MSc, he worked on evaluating new-generation fertilizers such as nano-urea and herbicide mixture-based weed management in wheat, publishing his findings in reputed journals. He has also co-authored a number of publications and presented papers at various national and international conferences.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Doctoral Research Fellow, Ayan is working on knowledge-guided machine learning, i.e., coupling machine learning with crop simulation models to identify low-emission and sustainable production pathways in rice-based systems. This innovative approach aims to optimize yield-emission trade-offs and develop climate-resilient agricultural strategies, particularly for small and marginal farmers.

Beyond academics, Ayan is passionate about cricket, badminton, fine arts, and cooking. He donates blood and promotes blood donation awareness. Through his research, he aspires to empower farmers with practical, climate-proofing solutions, contributing to a future where agriculture balances profitability and environmental sustainability.

Karen L Donoghue

Dr. Karen L. Donoghue is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Meghalaya. She obtained her BA from St. Anthony’s College, Shillong, which is affiliated with North-Eastern Hill University, in 2007 and completed her MA at Sikkim Manipal University in 2010. In July 2021, she was awarded a PhD by North-Eastern Hill University in Shillong, Meghalaya.

Dr. Donoghue’s research interests primarily lie in the fields of media representation, gender, and oral history, focusing on the intersection of media and self-representation, with oral history as a central method. She has published several research articles in reputable national and international journals. She was awarded a gold medal by North-Eastern Hill University for achieving first rank in her BA program.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Baylor University, Texas, Dr. Donoghue is focusing on the experiences, values, and practices of the Mizo diaspora in the United States through their oral histories. During her fellowship, she will examine migration patterns, community formation, and socio-political integration through lenses such as community collectives known as ‘pawls’ and the Mizo song tradition, as well as the role of technology and social media in preserving the cultural identity of the Mizo in the United States. Given the Mizo community’s predominantly Christian faith and the sizeable Christian population in the U.S., this project offers a unique perspective on transnational identity and solidarity.

Devika Singh Shekhawat

Ms. Devika Singh Shekhawat is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. She has a master’s in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests lies at the intersection of gender and labor studies, public health, migration studies, and developmental issues.

Ms. Shekhawat is a writer, educator and research scholar. She has written on the history and memory of migration of tea plantation workers of Assam for Zubaan Publication and co-authored a book chapter with the Programme of Social Actions – The Research Collective on the Ecological Crisis of Shrimp Aquaculture and discourses of migration and infiltration in Coastal Odisha. She has been a part of multiple projects that study rural public healthcare infrastructure, ecological conservation and labor relations in northeast India. Her research on the work of ASHA workers in tea plantations during the pandemic has been published as a book chapter with Northeast Social Research Centre and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.

Her Ph.D. research project explores the relationship between health and labor that manifests itself in the body of the worker and their everyday life. She engages with the nature of work, the production process that affects the health of the worker and the conditions for ailments and disease created for the worker in the tea plantations of Assam. Through a study of labor relations and structural conditions of work, her research attempts to explore how health and labor operate in tea plantations.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Ms. Shekhawat is working with Dr. Sarah Besky at the South Asia Program at Cornell University to carry forward her Ph.D. research work. She is focusing on how conditions of structural reproduction of ill-health are produced and understood within the plantation economy.

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.

Shiju Sam Varughese

Dr. Shiju Sam Varughese is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Studies in Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (CSSTIP) in the School of Social Sciences of Central University of Gujarat (CUG), Gandhinagar. After receiving basic training in biology, he completed his M.Phil research on People’s Science Movements (PSMs) and doctoral research on public controversies over science in media from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Dr. Varughese works on issues related to science and democracy by employing concepts and tools from History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science. He has authored Contested Knowledge: Science, Media, and Democracy in Kerala (Oxford University Press, 2017) and co-edited Kerala Modernity: Ideas, Spaces and Practices in Transition (Orient Blackswan, 2015). His current research interests include public engagement with science and technology, risk governance, new social movements, social history of knowledge, science and technology in popular culture, and regional modernities.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship, Dr. Varughese will theorise how the post-disaster societies develop new practices of care to reconstruct their life in the context of the pesticide disaster caused by the aerial spraying of Endosulfan in the cashew plantations in Kasaragod district of Kerala. He will argue that the practices of the community in the post-disaster reconstructive phase will be helpful in developing a new participatory model of risk governance to survive recurrent disasters.

Satish Kumar

Mr. Satish Kumar is a doctoral candidate and Senior Research Fellow (UGC-JRF/NET) at Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra. His Ph.D. research links agricultural production with nutritional food security through agriculture diversification in the semi-arid climate. His research interests include agriculture-nutrition linkages, food and nutrition security, sustainable agriculture, and policy process and policy design in Indian agriculture.

Before joining IIT Bombay for his M. Phil., Mr. Kumar earned his bachelor’s and master’s in geography from Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi respectively. For his M. Phil. dissertation, he developed a land use vulnerability index (LUVI) for the Mumbai metropolitan region to suggest sustainable land use planning using empirical evidence.

Mr. Kumar has presented his work at many international conferences. In addition, he represented India in the NTU-STEP scholar program at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and assisted the TIGR2ESS project in India, which is a research collaboration of Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and the University of Cambridge. He has delivered several lectures on agriculture sustainability and urban agriculture. He is also a university rank holder in the undergraduate program and represented the University of Delhi at several state-level table tennis tournaments.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Mr. Kumar is developing econometric models identifying the agriculture production and nutrition relationship in a geographical setting. He believes that his research will enable agriculture-dependent small and marginal farmers to achieve nutritional and food security through agricultural diversification.

Rajamanickam Marimuthu Gurusamy

M. G. Rajamanickam is an esteemed Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, renowned for his strategic vision and transformative leadership. Hailing from the humble village of Thiruvathavur in the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu, Rajamanickam’s journey is marked by the firm belief in the power of determination and hard work. His academic accomplishments include a gold medal in MTech from Anna University, and a master’s in public policy from King’s College, London, providing him with a solid foundation for innovative governance.

Throughout his tenure in the Kerala government, Rajamanickam has been deeply committed to addressing environmental challenges and mitigating the impacts of climate change. Notable initiatives like Ente Kulam Ernakulam for pond conservation and Anbodu Kochi for disaster relief underscore his dedication to sustainable development and community engagement. His efforts have garnered recognition, including the prestigious ‘Best District Collector Award’ from the Government of Kerala, acknowledging his outstanding contributions to administration and public service.

Rajamanickam’s commitment to environmental stewardship has been acknowledged by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which lauded his initiatives as best practices in youth volunteering for disaster relief operations. Additionally, he has received the Jala Mithram award from the Youth Hostel Association of India (YHAI) for his significant contributions to water conservation. Guided by a holistic approach rooted in sustainability and inclusivity, Rajamanickam continues to lead efforts toward building resilient communities and a brighter future for all.

As a Humphrey Fellow, Rajamanickam aims to deepen his expertise in sustainable development and environmental conservation, focusing on water resource management and climate change adaptation. Committed to addressing India’s challenges, he seeks to contribute significantly to environmental sustainability.

Abhisek Sahoo

Abhisek Sahoo grew up close to nature, in the coastal city of Puri, Orissa. He believes in creating a safe and healthy ecosystem for all species. Innovations in the field of solid waste management eventually led him to work in the area of sustainable development during his tenure at the esteemed laboratories of the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and the Indian Institute of Petroleum Dehradun. Abhisek is currently working at IIT Delhi on the development of a process for the upgradation of bio-liquids via the thermo-catalytic route. Previously, he worked at University College London (UCL) as a Commonwealth fellow.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Abhisek is working on the thermo-catalytic conversion of waste biomass and plastic into aromatics and fuel-range hydrocarbons for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). Employing green carbon-supported heterogeneous catalysts, his research aims to unlock the vast bioenergy potential inherent in waste substances. This breakthrough could pave the way for establishing biorefineries, supported by comprehensive techno-economic analysis and life-cycle assessments.

Abhisek advocates for the idea that sustainability is our responsibility. His research endeavours reflect a dedication to addressing environmental challenges through innovative and practical solutions. His journey exemplifies the spirit of academic excellence and a deep commitment to the global pursuit of sustainable energy solutions. He is also interested in photography, traditional cuisines, and exploring historical sites.