Host City India: Urbana-Champaign

Abhishesh Pal

Mr. Abhishesh Pal is a Ph.D. scholar at the MEMS, Mechatronics, and Nanoelectronics Lab (MMNE), BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus, Hyderabad. Mr. Pal intends to work on point-of-care devices by miniaturization of sensors for its application to detect and monitor soil and environmental parameters. This can facilitate deeper penetration of modern technology at a lower cost of utilization.

Mr. Pal earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Technical University, (AKTU), and a master’s degree in Nanotechnology from Karnataka’s National Institute of Technology, Surathkal (NITK). During his master’s degree, he utilized marine resources such as shells and bones of marine organisms to work on a patented process for dramatically lowering the sintering temperature of porous ceramic, which can be employed in biomedical applications such as bone scaffolds. He did an extensive study on the effects of combustible pore formers on biocompatible ceramics and optimized various parameters to develop porous scaffolds with required mechanical properties. During his master’s and ongoing doctoral degree, he published research articles in multiple peer-reviewed journals. Additionally, he filed a patent for a device that uses the colorimetric approach to detect and monitor soil macronutrients.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, he will enhance the miniaturized device developed by him to detect soil macronutrients and facilitate data monitoring as well by using machine learning approach such that various soil types can be covered. He wishes to develop a simple and low-cost device to bridge the gap between technology and the farming community in the world.

Having stayed in various parts of India he has developed a keen interest in Indian culture and understands six Indian languages. Also, he is a sports enthusiast and likes to spend his free time cooking and watching movies.

Fathima Rayammarakkar Fasal

Ms. Fathima Rayammarakkar Fasal is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai. Her doctoral research focuses on urban spaces, migrant communities, and land transformation in Bengaluru. She is researching urban local markets to understand how ethno-religious migrant communities co-produce spaces significant for local businesses in the city and negotiate with the dynamics of land transformation politics. Ms. Fasal has presented her research at various international conferences, including a presentation on urban aestheticization politics and land claims of a fishing community in Chennai at the European Sociological Association’s Urban Sociology Conference in Berlin and another on “Southern Urbanism as a Non-western Methodology for Urban Research” at the Ireland-India Institute’s South Asia conference.

Ms. Fasal has an interdisciplinary background with an M.A. in women’s studies and B.A. in social sciences from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and Hyderabad respectively. This interdisciplinary training reflects the choice and methodology of her ongoing research, which combines concepts from multiple disciplines such as sociology, urban studies, human geography and social history. Ms. Fasal has obtained Junior Research Fellowship (2018) in women’s studies and cleared UGC NET (2022) in sociology. She also worked as a research assistant on a UNICEF project at the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Besides academics, Ms. Fasal enjoys cooking, cinema and traveling.

During her Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Ms. Fasal is striving to valorize the heterogeneity of experiences and knowledge about Global South cities and is conducting comparative research on migrant economies and urbanisms.

Parikshit Gogoi

Dr. Parikshit Gogoi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Nowgong College (Autonomous), Nagaon, Assam. He obtained his M.Sc. in chemistry from Cotton University, Guwahati in 2001, M.Tech. in petroleum refining and petrochemicals from Dibrugarh University, Dibrugarh in 2003, and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat in 2010. Before joining Nowgong College, he worked in the Department of Chemistry at IIT Guwahati as technical staff. His current research interests are biomass-based chemicals, fuels and materials, natural products chemistry, and nanomaterials synthesis for catalytic applications.

He received the INSA Summer Research Fellowship for Teachers in 2014 from the Indian National Academy of Science, Bengaluru, and worked at the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (CSIR-IICT), Hyderabad. In 2016, he was awarded the Raman Fellowship for Post Doctoral Research at Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, by the University Grants Commission, and he contributed significantly to biomass conversion research. In 2021, he was awarded the Dulal Chandra Goswami Memorial Research Award by Nowgong College (Autonomous).

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Dr. Gogoi aims for the catalytic conversion of biomass/lignin bio-oils to aromatics and fuel range hydrocarbons using polyoxometallate catalysts. For upgrading bio-oil to high-valued hydrocarbon fuel or chemicals, catalytic hydrodeoxygenation (HDO), an energy-intensive process that requires high temperature and hydrogen gas pressure, is essential. Dr. Gogoi is working on developing catalyst systems to achieve HDO at low temperatures and moderate hydrogen pressure. This process will bring a new understanding of effective utilization of lignin in a biorefinery, benefitting its economy.