Host City India: PA

Krupa Rajangam

Dr. Krupa Rajangam is a humanities-based heritage scholar and conservation practitioner. In her research, she draws on anthropology and social geography to interpret nature-culture conservation practices, particularly the construction of socio-cultural place identities, urban-rural geographies, and tourism imaginaries. Her work is community-engaged, with a focus on public dissemination of research.

Dr. Rajangam earned her bachelor’s in architecture in 1999 from the RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru and her master’s in conservation studies in 2005 from the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York, UK. In 2020, she completed her doctorate in conservation studies at the National Institute of Advanced Studies and Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Dr. Rajangam is the Founder-Director of a collective called “Saythu… Linking People and Heritage” and an editorial board member of the Taylor & Francis journal, Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites (CMAS). She runs an immersive field school that is driven by and teaches critical theory, experiential field-based education, and interdisciplinary methods of learning.

Through her Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Rajangam is working to contribute to global debates on archaeological and heritage place-making, social geography, and social violence as outcomes of UNESCO World Heritage inscription, boundary demarcation, and management. The need for such studies is pressing urban-centric development of historic landscapes, contrary to the intent of practice and policy, is deepening social marginalization.

Poulami Nandi

Dr. Poulami Nandi is a postdoctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat since March 2022. She received her Ph.D. in physics from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) in April 2022. She earned her master’s in physics from IITK and joined the research group of Prof. Arjun Bagchi in 2017 to pursue her Ph.D. Her doctoral thesis “Carrollian Conformal Symmetry and Holography” focuses on Carrollian conformal and BMS field theories, and their relations with the holographic principle for asymptotically flat spacetimes.

During her Ph.D., Dr. Nandi was awarded two international fellowships: the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship 2019-2020 for nine months to visit the University of California, Davis and the Overseas Visiting Doctoral Fellowship 2018-2019 for 12 months by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India. She was also affiliated with the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Austria for six months from August 2019 before moving to California in 2020. She was awarded International Travel Support (ITS) by SERB in 2022 to present her work at the prestigious annual conference “Strings” in Vienna. She also received the INSPIRE scholarship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India during her undergraduate studies. She has co-authored several publications in international high-impact journals and presented her works through multiple seminars and posters in India and Europe.

The holographic principle is one of our best hopes to understand quantum gravity. One of its most prominent examples is the AdS/CFT correspondence, which is also deeply connected to diverse branches of physics, such as condensed matter, quantum information, and optics. During her Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellowship, Dr. Nandi is investigating the interface of quantum theory of gravity and theory of quantum computation. She is working to understand aspects of quantum information theory for non-Lorentzian field theories, in the context of flat-space holography, and also the dynamics of quantum systems.

Rojalin Padhan

Ms. Rojalin Padhan is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Her doctoral thesis focuses on phenomenological implications of beyond the Standard Model theories, the theory of neutrino mass generation, and dark matter. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals, and she has presented at several national and international conferences.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Gangadhar Meher College, Sambalpur, Odisha, and a master’s degree in Physics from Sambalpur University, Odisha. She has qualified in examinations such as the JEST, Joint CSIR-UGC JRF-NET, and GATE. She also holds a Diploma in Advanced Physics from the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, Odisha.

Apart from Physics, she has an interest in social work. She enjoys spending time on the beach and in the mountains, as well as gardening. She loves to travel to different places and to meet people of various cultures.

As a Fulbright-Nehru fellow, she is exploring the potential reach of the proposed multi-TeV Muon Collider to search for beyond the Standard Model particles. She is primarily working on collider signatures of models that predict dark matter candidates and address the origin of the observed neutrino masses.

Chinar Mehta

Ms. Chinar Mehta is a doctoral scholar and Research Assistant, working at the Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad. She has presented at conferences and seminars held by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), and Frames of Reference organized by the School of Media and Cultural Studies, TISS. In 2021, she was also selected to be part of the Doctoral Colloquium at the annual AoIR conference. As a Research Assistant at FemLabCo, she researches labor conditions in the sanitation sector in Hyderabad. FemLabCo is a research project funded by the International Development Research Centre which research how digital tools can be leveraged by women workers to get better bargaining power in a precarious labor market.

Ms. Mehta’s doctoral research pertains to the people, tools, and practices involved in software development, and what that means for the design new media technologies. For this, she draws from theoretical work in feminist media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies. She continues this research at Carnegie Mellon University with Dr Sarah Fox, to get guidance with interdisciplinary research that aims to make meaningful and specific claims about what technologies allow and disallow.

Ms. Mehta received her masters’ degree in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences at Mumbai. She has received prior training in Information and Communication Technology through her bachelors’ degree from Dhirubhai Ambani Insitute of Information and Communication Technology. She worked as a software developer for 2 years before joining TISS.

Taha Mughal

Mr. Taha Mughal completed his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University in 2015. In his six years of professional practice, he has held teaching, research, and professional roles in different organizations. He has been associated with organizations including the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) Srinagar, Prince Claus Fund (Netherlands) and Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts.

Since 2016, he has been working as a Project Architect with INTACH Kashmir – an NGO that primarily works to conserve natural and built heritage in Kashmir. His prime responsibilities at the organization include research and architectural documentation and assisting different conservation and restoration projects in the region. His additional responsibility at the organization includes organizing community engagement programs for heritage promotion.

Mr. Mughal has been awarded the Charles Wallace India Trust Award (2021-22). He was also selected for the Chevening Awards (2021-22). Other awards and fellowships to his credit include the Effective Altruism Fellowship, Cambridge-UK 2021; the Kashmir Fellowship for Peace Building 2019 by The Bridge Institute UK; the Dara Shikoh Scholar’s Fellowship 2019; the International Art Residency Fellowship, 2015; and the International Art Residency Fellowship, 2013, by the Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Master’s Fellow, Mr. Mughal is pursuing a graduate program in historic preservation that provides interdisciplinary knowledge and skills in architectural history, preservation theory and practice, research, and documentation methodologies, building conservation, and architectural and urban preservation planning. After completing the program, he would like to return to Kashmir and integrate his learnings for the cause of conservation in the region.

Praveen Kumar

Dr. Praveen Kumar is working as an Assistant Professor at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Sciences (IACS), Kolkata. He did his Ph.D. from the Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, followed by postdoctoral research at ISOM, UPM Madrid, Spain, as a Marie Curie Fellow. He is an Editorial Board Member of Materials Letters (Elsevier) and Nanotechnology (IOP) Journals. He has served as a Chair, Marie Curie Alumni Association (MCAA), Indian Chapter, funded by the European Commission from May 2017 to July 2021. He is also a member of The National Academy of Sciences (NASI), India and Indian National Young Academy of Sciences (INYAS).

Dr. Kumar’s research contribution covers a broad spectrum of materials science, including III-V semiconductors, 2D-Materials, MXenes, carbon nanostructures, etc., for various energy harvesting (PEC water splitting, CO2 reduction, broadband photodetectors) and storage (supercapacitors) applications. He has authored 89 publications in peer-reviewed international journals, filed 03 patents, more than 75 in conference proceedings, 09 books/chapters, and delivered around 52 invited talks around the globe. He is a recipient of several recognized awards and fellowships, including MRSI Medal 2021, MCAA Societal Impact Award (2019), DAE Young Achiever Award (2019), Micro Internal Travel Grants (MITG), European Commission (2018), BRICS Young Scientist Award (2017), INSPIRE Faculty Award (2014), and the Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (2012).

Dr. Kumar’s Fulbright-Nehru project aims to develop facile synthesis processes for MXenes heterostructures and establish their optical, electronic, electrical, and magnetic properties by experimental and theoretical means for energy harvesting (water splitting and CO2 reduction) applications. He will also be teaching Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology courses at Drexel University.

Bokinala Moses Abraham

Dr. Bokinala Moses Abraham is National Postdoctoral Fellow in the group of Prof. Jayant K. Singh at IIT-Kanpur, which focuses on fusing density functional theory simulations with modern machine learning approaches to rationalize and accelerate the chemical design and discovery of novel materials. Dr. Abraham obtained his first-class B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in physics from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. Thereafter, he moved to the University of Hyderabad for a Ph.D. degree, where he pursued his own research ideas that enabled him to tackle multidisciplinary problems, such as those related to the study of materials at high-pressures, and understanding the physico-chemical properties of high-energy density materials.

Dr. Abraham has contributed to nearly 45 international publications in peer-reviewed journals. He has received several prestigious and competitive fundings for attending international conferences, which includes the RSC travel grant and the International Travel Support grant offered by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Government of India. He also received funding from high parallel-computing HPC-Europa3 mobility program (2022) for a research stay of 3 months at the University of Barcelona (UB), Spain with Prof. Dr. Francesc Illas’ group. Dr. Abraham’s work towards design and development of highly efficient catalysts for CO2 conversion and hydrogen evolution reaction are seminal contributions to the field of catalysis.

Dr. Abraham is designing and developing a library of unique and fascinating MXene-supported single atom catalysts by fusing modern machine-learning approaches with experimental techniques during the Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Postdoctoral Research. Dr. Abraham believes that the scientific knowledge generated from this project would be utilized as a reference for CO2 reduction into hydrocarbon fuels, thereby helping meet real-world energy demands in a sustainable manner.

Abhijit Chowdhury

Abhijit Chowdhury is a screenwriter and director, working in the Bengali film and television industry in Kolkata. He has directed independent feature films, short films, and multiple popular and critically acclaimed Bengali web series, such as Manbhanjan, Johny Bonny, Astey Ladies, and Ekenbabu o Dhaka Rohosyo.

Abhijit is a guest lecturer at iLead, Kolkata, and several other institutions in the city, where he teaches filmmaking and screenwriting.

In his seven months as a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, Abhijit will teach a 3-credit undergraduate course on specific aspects of Indian cinema, and also offer a writing course on episodic short-scripts. He will work with the Cinema Studies Department to add more diversity to their current course curriculum. During this time, Abhijit will direct a short film as well, using Drexel University’s production resources, which will offer experiential learning to the students on his crew.

Ahana Ghosh

Ms. Ahana Ghosh is a doctoral scholar and Teaching Assistant at the Archaeological Sciences Centre, Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, Gujarat. She is also a student ambassador from South Asia for the Society for Archaeological Sciences. She completed her master’s and M.Phil. in archaeology from the University of Kolkata, Kolkata, and Deccan College Postgraduate and Research Institute, Pune, Maharashtra respectively. Her research interest is grounded in the food archaeology of South Asia. Her work also elucidates the concept of “culinary landscape” and different aspects of “realities” and “representations” of food.

In the past, Ms. Ghosh held an Early Career Researcher position at the Rewriting World Archaeology program, Durham University, UK, and was Visiting Researcher at Stockholm University, Sweden as well as at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, US. She has published and co-authored papers and book chapters in many reputed international peer-reviewed journals like Holocene, Radio-Carbon, and Zenedo, and also presented her work at many international conferences. Moreover, she received “Student Research Support” from the Society for Archaeological Sciences for her doctoral project, and has shot a documentary film on the culinary journey of the communities living in the Dholavira village, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat.

Ms. Ghosh’s doctoral project explores the foodways of ancient Harappans from some of the selected settlements located in different geographical zones, like the Kutch region of Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh. Within foodways, she aims to explore their dietary and ritual practices by examining the biomolecular components lying in the organic residues within ceramics used by the inhabitants of these settlements. Dietary studies are still in the embryonic phase in South Asian archaeology. Thus, conventional ceramic studies must be reassessed and augmented with the latest scientific methodologies and different nuances of food anthropology and cultural ecology to develop a broader view of ancient foodways at the site-specific and panoptic regional level for the subcontinent’s first complex society. For the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Ms. Ghosh is working on the methodological and interpretational part of her doctoral project and is combining analytical outcomes with food anthropological theoretical abstractions.

P.K. Yasser Arafath

Dr. P.K. Yasser Arafath is Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Delhi and a historian of medieval and early modern India. He was L.M. Singhi Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge in 2017.

Dr. Arafath received his Ph.D. from the University of Hyderabad, and his research primarily focuses on South India. He is interested in its intellectual traditions, transliterated literature, history of violence, communities in the Indian Ocean, and the cultural history of the body and hygiene in the region. He has co-edited Sultana’s Sisters: Genre, Gender, and Genealogy in South Asian Muslim Women’s Fiction (Routledge, 2021) and The Hijab: Islam, Women and the Politics of Clothing (Simon & Schuster, 2022). Dr. Arafath won the prestigious Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer Best Published Paper Award (2020–2021) for his research article that he published in The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr. Arafath is examining how a section of South Asian Islamic scholars shaped the gender sensibilities of the Mappila-Muslims of Malabar by engaging with multiple discourses within the region and beyond in the 19th century. His project aims to do a systematic study of gender and sexuality in Arabi-Malayalam, a transliterated textual tradition in the Indian Ocean region that entails writing Malayalam —the native tongue of Kerala —in Arabic script. This study will add to the existing body of knowledge on gendered Islam in South Asia and gender discourses in South Asian Islamic cultures in the 19th century.