Host City India: Ithaca

Abhiram Giri Sankar

Abhiram Giri Sankar is an IAS officer by profession. He completed his B.Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Kerala. He secured fourth rank in the all-India Civil Services Examination, 2010 and joined the Karnataka cadre. He is a passionate birdwatcher and volunteers actively towards eBird, a global citizen science initiative of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Abhiram currently serves as Deputy Director at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Government of India, Mussoorie, where he trains and mentors civil servants. In his public service career spanning over a decade, he has served in various capacities in the state of Karnataka, including Deputy Commissioner, CEO Zilla Panchayat, among others. This experience deepened his understanding of ground-level realities of development administration and exposed him to a wide range of issues.

Under his leadership, Mysuru district won national awards for the Cleanest Medium City, fifth overall cleanest city in India, and a 5-Star Rating for Garbage Free Cities. Mr. Abhiram also earned appreciation of the Government of Karnataka for his contributions towards the COVID-19 pandemic response as well as for flood relief efforts.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellowship, Abhiram is studying regional planning at Cornell University, where he aspires to gain deep insights into effective urban planning and policy-making necessary to transform Indian cities into livable, equitable, and resilient entities. After completing his fellowship, he aims to find sustainable solutions through a multi-stakeholder approach and be a change-maker public servant.

Swarnali Dey

Swarnali Dey is a third year Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Botany, University of Calcutta. As a part of her master’s dissertation project, she developed a new seed invigoration technique that she likes to call “iron pulsing,” and thereafter she has been working on it. Her study mainly involves understanding the role of iron supplementation during rice seed germination and deciphering the molecular mechanism of “iron pulsing” induced growth enhancement in rice. She has published over ten research and review articles in reputed journals and presented her work at various national and international conferences.

Swarnali obtained her bachelor’s degree in botany from Bethune College, Kolkata, and her master’s degree from the Department of Botany, University of Calcutta. She had secured second position in her bachelor’s and first position in her master’s programs. She qualified CSIR-UGC NET examination in life sciences and secured an All-India Rank 1. She has been awarded the DST INSPIRE fellowship, DBT JRF, the prestigious CSIR Shyama Prasad Mukherjee fellowship, and the Raman Charpak fellowship (for six months in France) by CEFIPRA.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, Swarnali is analyzing the potential of “iron pulsing” in minimizing cadmium accumulation in rice. Besides, she will be trying to understand the iron distribution and homeostasis in rice seeds subjected to “iron pulsing.” She aims to develop a user-friendly and affordable technique to enhance the yield and nutritional quality of rice plants to achieve food security. Swarnali is a travel enthusiast, and also fond of listening to music and cooking.

Rahul Mangal

Dr. Rahul Mangal serves as an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He completed his PhD in 2016 from Cornell University with Prof. Lynden Archer, where he worked on exploring the structural and dynamic characteristics of nano-particle polymer composites. After his Ph.D., Dr. Mangal did his postdoctoral research with Prof. Nicholas Abbott at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he explored how the anisotropic properties of liquid crystals influence the behavior of active colloids.

Dr. Mangal’s team at IIT Kanpur is conducting experimental investigations on a diverse range of problems associated with soft matter systems, polymers, and colloids. Their recent focus is on the synthesis and dynamics of artificial micro-swimmers in complex environments.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (Research and Teaching) fellowship at Cornell University, Ithaca, NJ, Dr. Mangal is investigating the synthesis of hybrid self-propulsion of Janus colloids and the rheological impact of active JCs on the viscoelastic medium. Through this project, Dr. Mangal will strive to facilitate the ongoing scientific endeavors in controlling the motion of artificial micro-swimmers in microscopic domains for their potential applications in cargo/ drug delivery, bio-diagnostics, and tuning material properties using active colloids as additives. Dr. Mangal is also set to teach a course on polymer physics at Cornell, aiming to foster a synergy between teaching and research.