Host City India: New York

Chalantika Chakraborty

Ms. Chalantika Chakraborty is a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Mandi. With a background in economics, her research lies at the intersection of energy economics, industrial and climate policy. Her doctoral research examines energy consumption trends across Indian industries and studies how industrial output and energy use respond to market-based mechanisms such as the perform, achieve and trade policy. She has presented her work at international platforms including the International Association for Energy Economics conference and World Sustainable Energy Days.

Chalantika holds a master’s degree in economics from Cotton University in Guwahati, Assam. During college, she was actively involved in the National Service Scheme and contributed to several social outreach initiatives through NGO volunteering. Prior to joining PhD, she worked on multiple research projects.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow, Chalantika is conducting comparative research of India and the U.S. to examine how policy design influences industrial energy efficiency, emissions reduction, and decarbonisation pathways in developing and advanced economies. Beyond academia, she nurtures a deep love for India’s rich musical and dance traditions, spanning classical and folk forms. She holds two bachelor’s degrees in music, has received professional training in Kathak and Rabindra Nritya and performed at several events. She enjoys writing, reading Ruskin Bond, and learning regional music that connects her more deeply with the places she lives in.

Ritu Gupta

Dr. Ritu Gupta leads the Unit of Laboratory Oncology at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). A clinician-scientist and hematopathologist, she is engaged in translational research and has contributed to the development of ethnicity-specific, AI-enabled risk stratification models for patients with multiple myeloma, thereby refining cancer staging and prognostication across resource-diverse healthcare settings.

Dr. Gupta established India’s first fully robotic clinical laboratory at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), in addition to founding a Unit of Excellence for Multiple Myeloma Research and a Centre for Advanced Research in Acute Myeloid Leukemia at AIIMS. She has also played an important role in drafting national guidelines in laboratory diagnostics.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Gupta is expanding her research on next-generation strategies for monitoring therapeutic responses in the evolving era of cellular cancer therapeutics. Her current work is directed toward the creation of patient-centric diagnostic workflows that intelligently integrate therapeutic modality, clinically actionable turnaround times, and infrastructure considerations to facilitate timely and individualized intervention.

In addition, Dr. Gupta is engaging with students, scholars, and investigators, sharing her perspective on the integration of clinical, patient-specific, and tumor-biological variables with artificial intelligence to develop robust, evidence-based, and future-ready paradigms in cancer diagnostics.

Manisha Mohanty

Dr. Manisha Mohanty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She completed her PhD in English from Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Her doctoral research examined the intersections of food, gender, and identity in Indian and diasporic women’s food memoirs through the frameworks of feminist food studies, cultural studies, and gastro-politics. She earned her MPhil and MA in English from Utkal University, Odisha, where she was awarded the University Gold Medal for securing the highest rank at postgraduate level.

Dr. Mohanty’s research interests include food, gender, and cultural studies. Her work has been published in the journals Food, Culture & Society and the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, and she has contributed chapters to edited volumes published by Bloomsbury and Routledge. She is also the author of the forthcoming book Food Cultures of India: Cuisine, Customs, and Issues (Bloomsbury, 2027).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Mohanty is researching Indian American foodways between 1993 and 2013 by examining community cookbooks, family recipe collections, and early digital food content. Her project examines how culinary texts function as sites of cultural preservation, adaptation, and resistance within Indian American diaspora. The project investigates how recipes reflect evolving gender roles, negotiations of identity, and everyday acts of resilience in the context of globalization and changing American food culture.

Balasubramanian Geetha

Dr. B. Geetha is an Assistant Professor at the Manipal Institute of Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Her research interests include film history, stardom, comedy studies, film aesthetics, and archival studies within South Asian visual cultures. She was the recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship in Visual Arts at Michigan State University (2022–2023). She also received a travel grant from the UCLA Center for India and South Asia (2023) for her doctoral work on Tamil cinema.

Dr. Geetha’s academic publications have appeared in journals such as Celebrity Studies, South Asian Review, Senses of Cinema, Screen, and Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Geetha’s work engages with the physical modality of slapstick to theorize the performative possibilities of the comic body in Tamil cinema. This research finds its methodological grounding by drawing on conceptual tools from the fields of film studies and performance studies to examine concerns around embodied caste labor through the gestural registers of the comedian. Overall, the research excavates the comedic strand of thought within the historiography of Indian cinema by studying the aesthetico-ethical stakes of laughter, pain, and film form.

Shristi Borthakur

Ms. Shristi Borthakur is a lawyer practicing in New Delhi and works on disability rights. Shristi’s work is deeply influenced by personal experience, driving her to focus on disability rights, especially for persons with mental and development disabilities. She works closely with persons with disabilities, caregivers, educators, and special schools to access legal protections, such as appointment of a guardian, travel regulations, access to higher education, insurance, estate planning, and so on. Her long-term goal is to contribute to the development of disability rights jurisprudence in India, including legal reforms addressing transition to adulthood, guardianship, training modules for lawyers and judges, and policy integration.

She holds a BA LLB degree from Symbiosis Law School. She worked for five years at the office of senior advocate Ms Arundhati Katju and also independently argued cases. She has worked on diverse cases ranging from civil to commercial and criminal to constitutional before the Supreme Court. Notably, Shristi has worked on the landmark case of marriage equality before the Indian Supreme Court, an experience that shaped her commitment to constitutional and social justice.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Shristi is pursuing a Master of Laws degree to undertake a study on the equivalent disability laws and processes in the United States and test their applicability to the existing framework in India. She is focusing on public and social infrastructure that exists in the US, and its impact on people with disabilities. Shristi plans to continue to build her independent litigation practice in India.

Naveen Kumar Banageri Thimmappa

Mr. Naveen Kumar is a writer, filmmaker, and educator from Hosabale, a village in Soraba Taluk, Karnataka. A first-generation student from an indigenous community and a strong believer in diversity and representation, his work is rooted in community-led storytelling and focuses on rural life, caste, memory, and social justice. Naveen has written, directed, shot, and edited several short films made collaboratively with over a hundred people from his village. His films have been screened at international film festivals and have won multiple awards. He has also conducted grassroots filmmaking workshops at major educational institutions across Karnataka.

Naveen holds a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences from St Joseph’s University, Bangalore, and a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from Bangalore University. He writes in both Kannada and English. His personal essay Track 01 won the Barbra Naidu Award for Personal Essay (2023) and is included in the third-year BA English syllabus at St Joseph’s University. He is the recipient of the Toto Award for Kannada Creative Writing (2024) and was recognized as a Deccan Herald Changemaker in 2026. Naveen has collaborated with multiple non-profit organizations as a filmmaker and social media consultant. He also runs Bheemashaale, a community learning center in his village, where he works with over 150 first-generation learners from indigenous backgrounds through arts-based education.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Naveen is deepening his practice in ethical, community-centered documentary storytelling through global artistic and academic engagement. He plans to strengthen independent documentary cinema and grassroots storytelling in India.

Natasha Maheshwari

Ms. Natasha Maheshwari is a constitutional and human rights lawyer. She graduated from the Maharashtra National Law University Mumbai in 2021, after which she has been practising in New Delhi – first at the chambers of Ms Vrinda Bhandari, and then with senior advocates Mr Shadan Farasat and Ms Warisha Farasat.

Natasha’s practice is focused on expanding, broadening, and reshaping the contours of the right to freedom of speech and expression in India, as well as limiting the increasingly aggressive attempts made by private and public institutions to interfere with this right.

Natasha has worked on more than 30 cases involving the regulation and restriction of speech, press freedoms, intermediary liability, and digital rights. Alongside litigation, Natasha has taught certificate courses on digital rights and cybercrimes, contributed to research and scholarship on the subject, and advised intergovernmental organisations and corporates on tech policy.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Natasha is studying comparative constitutional law and American constitutional law and theory. In particular, she wants to compare doctrine and standards of review used by Indian and American courts while determining the constitutionality of measures limiting free speech.

Manasa Ramakrishna

Ms. Manasa Ramakrishna is a lawyer specializing in criminal law, constitutional rights, and the death penalty. She has worked at The Square Circle Clinic, NALSAR University of Law (formerly known as Project 39A) where she represented individuals on death row before the Supreme Court of India and various High Courts. Her work with prisoners and their families and the lived realities of the criminal justice system informs her interest in the structural and institutional dimensions of the criminal justice system. She has also contributed to research and strategic litigation at the intersection of criminal and constitutional law.

Manasa graduated from Jindal Global Law School with a BA LLB (Hons) degree in 2020. Thereafter, she worked at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas in Mumbai, where she advised on white-collar crime, arbitration, and commercial disputes. This experience sharpened her understanding of institutional processes and accountability, which continues to inform her approach to criminal law.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Manasa is studying criminal law and procedure and constitutional theory. She will engage with interdisciplinary approaches in the United States to deepen her understanding of the criminal justice system. Manasa hopes to build her litigation practice and contribute to rights-based criminal justice advocacy in India.

Arthita Banerjee

Ms. Arthita Banerjee is a consultant at Environmental Resources Management (ERM), where she works at the intersection of sustainability and development. Her work focuses on how environmental and social risks are assessed, priced, and managed within large-scale investments across emerging markets. She has advised on over 45 transactions across India and the Asia-Pacific region, working with institutions such as the World Bank – IFC, Green Climate Fund, and major private equity investors. Her sectoral experience spans renewable energy (hydro, solar, wind), transmission infrastructure, data centers, and healthcare and pharmaceuticals.

Arthita holds a BA LLB (Hons) from Hidayatullah National Law University. She is a Fellow of the Women in Climate & Energy Fellowship (WICEF) at EnergyLab, a major climate tech startup accelerator, where she was selected to a global cohort of sixteen and developed a parametric insurance model aimed at improving financial resilience to climate shocks. Her work reflects a broader interest in designing market-based mechanisms that make climate risk more effectively priced and managed.

Arthita was part of ERM’s Foundation Committee, where she supported initiatives advancing women’s livelihoods in the low-carbon economy through Swadhina, a non-profit organization, and mentored first-generation university students through the Bloomberg x Asian University for Women program.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Arthita is pursuing a Master’s in Climate Finance at Columbia University. She is deepening her understanding of how financial systems can be designed to respond to a changing climate, not only by managing risk but by directing capital toward more resilient and inclusive futures.

Aparimita Pratap

Ms. Aparimita Pratap is a lawyer with over seven years of experience, currently working at the intersection of criminal law, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and access to justice for marginalized communities in India. She holds a BA LLB (Hons) from The West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata (2019).

Aparimita designed and led a legal aid program at the Migration and Asylum Project, a New Delhi-based refugee legal aid center. Her work focused on increasing legal awareness on SGBV, training beneficiaries and creating community structures such as legal aid clinics and women’s groups where beneficiaries could openly discuss violence. She worked on strengthening the capacity of private and state actors to respond to SGBV, training paralegal volunteers, legal aid lawyers, women panchayats, and counsellors across Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, and Himachal Pradesh.

Alongside, Aparimita has represented over 100 survivors and built a network of lawyers to expand legal representation in SGBV cases. She has also used strategic litigation, including before the Delhi High Court, challenging coercive mediation in domestic violence cases. She now has independent practice and continues this work.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s fellow, Aparimita is focusing on criminal law and trauma-informed, survivor-centric jurisprudence in SGBV cases. She is studying how legal frameworks in the United States protect survivors during investigation and trial and will bring these learnings back to India to challenge gaps in criminal law through litigation and advocacy. She will also continue her work to improve the legal aid system in India.