Host City India: University Park

Nijesh P

Mr. Nijesh P is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Geology, Centre for Advanced Study, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Nijesh specializes in hydrogeology. He is well-versed in hydrological field investigation, hydrogeochemical analysis, hydrogeochemical modelling, remote sensing and GIS, mineral identification and exploration, and geophysical survey. He has published papers in various reputed national and international journals. The most recent one deals with the study of isotopic characteristics and water quality with emphasis on fluoride in the water-scarce Lalitpur district of the Bundelkhand region in India.

Nijesh holds a master’s degree in Applied Geology from Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, where he passed with first class. He has worked as a Junior Research fellow at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, before enrolling into his doctorate program. He is a hodophile and loves to explore new destinations. He also has a keen interest in music and is an amateur guitarist.

Nijesh is pursuing a doctoral program on “Hydrogeological and Isotopic evolution of springs and their management strategies in a micro watershed of Kosi River basin at Kumaun Lesser Himalaya Uttarakhand, India.” He is widening his research data and inferences further at Penn State University through the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. The research opens a new door toward the methodologies and parameters used in hydrogeology for the study of springs.

Akshay U Nair

Mr. Akshay U Nair is a Ph.D. scholar at the Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati. The major interest of research is understanding the molecular mechanisms underpinning the plant acquired stress response(s). He is trying to correlate the key transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and epigenetic pathways to get a deeper understanding of the stress memory mechanism in plants. Identifying the vital regulatory modules could aid in engineering abiotic stress-resilient crops.

He completed his master’s from the Department of Plant Science, Central University of Kerala. He has been a summer research fellow (2019) of the Indian Academy of Sciences. He has qualified for some of the national-level competitive exams including CSIR-Net, GATE, JGEEBILS.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, he will be investigating how the transgenerational inheritance of acquired stress tolerance occurs in plants. The outputs of this research will be helpful in connecting the altered gene regulatory networks with epigenetic modifications induced by specific abiotic stresses in plants.

He spends his non-research hours playing football and venturing into short stories. He is also interested in cooking and exploring new places.

Devidutta Samantaray

Ms. Devidutta Samantaray is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biology, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Tirupati. She is working towards unveiling the epigenetic regulation of heat stress response and establishment of plant stress memory. Identification of principal regulators of plant stress response will pave a path towards the development of a feasible system for epigenetic breeding for crop improvement programs.

Ms. Samantaray holds a bachelor’s degree in botany from Nimapara Autonomous College, Puri, Odisha, and a master’s degree in botany from Utkal University, Odisha. She was awarded the Institute of Mathematics and Application scholarship by the Government of Odisha to pursue post-graduation studies in science, mathematics and biotechnology. She has qualified national level competitive exams including Joint CSIR-UGC JRF-NET, ICAR-NET and GATE.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Samantaray is identifying and elucidating the role(s) of small RNAs in regulating transgenerational stress-adaptive phenotypic plasticity in Arabidopsis thaliana. She hopes to be a scientific researcher in the field of plant epigenetics.

Mukesh Kumar Singh

Mr. Mukesh Kumar Singh is a Ph.D. research scholar at International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, TIFR, Bengaluru. His research interests span gravitational wave astronomy and astrophysics. In particular, he is interested in improving the gravitational wave early-warning of neutron star-black hole binary mergers. He is also interested in inferring the population properties of binary black hole mergers that could shed light on the understanding of stellar evolution, supernovae physics, and formation channels of compact binary systems.

Mr. Singh holds a bachelor’s in physics from Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, and a master’s in physics from Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. He is the recipient of INSPIRE Scholarship to pursue higher education in science from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He has qualified various examinations such as Joint CSIR-UGC JRF-NET, JAM, JEST, and GATE. Apart from physics, he enjoys trekking and playing badminton. He is also keen on music and is learning to play violin. He loves to travel and meet new people and learn about their cultures while sharing his.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Mr. Singh is exploring the impact of subdominant modes of gravitational radiation on improving the GW early-warning of compact binary mergers. This will help astronomers point their telescopes to the merger location before the emission of any electromagnetic counterpart, potentially leading to multi-messenger observation.