Host City India: Itta Bena

Vandana Saxena

Dr. vandana saxena is an evolving academician in the field of Diversity and Inclusion for the last three decades. She is a Professor of Education at CIE, Delhi University. She taught for four years in a school as a science teacher before joining CIE in November 1997. In her academic persuasion to cultivate a democratic educational environment, she is engaged with teaching, training, research & consultations focusing upon developing research-based thought-provoking pedagogical designs addressing issues of Diversity and Inclusion across all ages. She has worked on multiple projects & assignments with MHRD (India), World Bank, UGC, NCERT, NCTE, NIOS, RCI, and several civil society initiatives. She has addressed and written in, many national and international forums. Her prime contemplation is on Conceptualizing Research in Education, Driving Research Questions, Academic Writing, and Ethics in Research, for which she is conducting workshops with researchers in various universities at the Pan-India level.

She has been diligently promoting the case of equal opportunities for all, symbolized by the conscious use of lowercasing for the writing of her name.

As an essential part of the Fulbright grant, Dr. saxena will be designing the course curriculum and teaching in the Departments of Education at Mississippi Valley State University (MS). She will be engaged in field visits and community outreach programs. Along with academic persuasions, she plans to create opportunities for cultural exchange with students and faculty members of MVSU. Placed at the center of the civil rights movement, she is hopeful of developing deeper theoretical insights furthering the process of conceptualizing perspectives in diversity and inclusion.

Vikas Audumbar Kadam

Dr. Vikas Audumbar Kadam works as an assistant professor in the Department of English, Malla Reddy University, Hyderabad, Telangana. He has taught many courses in English language communication, business communication, and soft skills at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has a PhD in English language education from The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad. He has done M.Phil. in English language studies from the University of Hyderabad. He has also completed a postgraduate diploma in the Teaching of English (PGDTE) and a B.Ed. in English from EFLU Hyderabad.

Dr. Kadam has published his research in international and national journals and presented at several national and international conferences in the areas of language assessment and testing, pedagogical and collaborative assessment, critical thinking, and teacher education. His recent publication includes a research article on Tertiary Level Teachers’ Research Engagement in a Scopus indexed international journal ‘IUP Journal of English Studies’. Dr. Kadam is associated with the Regional Institute of Education (RIE- NCERT), Bhopal, and SCERT Andhra Pradesh as a course content developer and teacher trainer.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, he will teach Hindi at Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, Mississippi. In the world of globalization and technological advancements where spatial boundaries get thinner each day, Dr. Kadam, through his foreign language teaching assignments and other academic and cultural events, will attempt to establish an intercultural bond between his home culture and the local culture in the U.S.

Vivek Singh

Dr. Vivek Singh is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi. He has taught several courses in English literature, language, and cultural studies at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels; and has taught research writing to Ph.D. scholars. He has also taught at the Department of English, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh. After pursuing his M.Phil. from Pondicherry University, Puducherry, Dr. Singh joined EFL University, Hyderabad to complete his doctorate. His research interests include disability studies, cultural studies, English language teaching, and critical humanities.

Dr. Singh has delivered more than 20 invited lectures on various topics and published more than ten articles and academic papers. He has edited a book titled The Crisis of Humanity and his forthcoming books are in two languages: The Discourse of Disability: Indian Perspectives (English) and Post-truth (Hindi). For excellence in research, he received a DAAD fellowship.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Dr. Singh is teaching Hindi at Mississippi Valley State University, Mississippi. He is also studying the American social and cultural diversity and promoting Indian languages and cultures. In the classroom, he is engaging with critical pedagogy, which insists upon deliberation, critical judgment, and civic courage to celebrate pluralities as the essence of democratic thought.

Anuja Halder

Anuja Halder works as a prompt engineer with Nvidia Corporation in Bengaluru. She deals with generative AI and works with Language Learning Materials (LLM) to train AI models to be more human-like, impersonal, and creative. She completed her master’s in English from the English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in 2021. Her interest lies in teaching and training, data analytics, gender studies, and dramatics. She also holds a diploma in theatre arts and a bachelor’s degree in English. She has delivered guest lectures and served as a panelist at Amity University in Noida from 2021 to 2023.

As a resource person, Anuja has conducted extensive fieldwork with the Azim Premji Foundation in Uttarakhand. She has taught in government schools, trained Anganwadi and government primary-school teachers in remote villages, and facilitated district-level workshops on FLN for Teacher Professional Development. Her research on storytelling, gender, and climate change has been published in esteemed journals. Additionally, she is actively engaged with the United Nations as a volunteer.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Anuja is teaching Hindi at Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, MS. She aspires to juxtapose her language training expertise and experience to create a cultural bridge between India and the U.S. She aims to blend her professional skillset with cultural exploration, aspiring to understand and integrate into her educational practices, diverse cultural patterns through language.