Host City USA: Bengaluru

Renee Muthakana

Renee Muthakana is a graduate student at Duke University whose work lies at the intersection of law, policy, and medicine. With a focus on reproductive health systems, her research examines how legal and policy frameworks shape healthcare delivery. Renee is a University of Pittsburgh summa cum laude graduate, where she majored in women’s studies and chemistry.

She has two years of healthcare consulting experience at a leading global consulting firm, where she supported health systems in the areas of operational strategy, policy implementation, and performance improvement. Her research includes peer-reviewed and conference-based work on global in vitro fertilization (IVF) policy frameworks, assisted reproductive technology (ART), AI governance in clinical settings, and the inclusion of pregnant women in research. Recently, she coauthored a peer-reviewed article in BMC Reproductive Health; the article is a comparative analysis of IVF policies across 24 countries and identifies variation in regulatory approaches while highlighting India as a key case for further study due to its rapidly expanding ART market and the evolving regulatory landscape related to it.

Renee’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is examining how India’s ART policies can be strengthened to improve the quality of care. Building on Renee’s recent coauthored publication, her project is conducting a national- and state-level ART policy review, alongside interviews with policymakers, clinicians, and patients, with the aim of generating actionable insights to inform policy development.

Dharani Moorthy

Dharani Moorthy graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BS in molecular and cellular biology in May 2026. His academic and research interests center on infectious disease, diagnostic innovation, and expanding healthcare access for underserved communities. Dharani is a recipient of the Johns Hopkins Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award, one of only 20 undergraduates selected for this competitive funding. At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, he investigates novel virulence factors in Trypanosoma cruzi and their regulatory mechanisms, using RNA sequencing, bisulfite sequencing, and mouse models to evaluate cardiomyopathy and infection dynamics in cardiomyocytes.

Beyond the lab, Dharani serves as a Hopkins Community Connection Triage Coordinator at Bayview Medical Center. He also writes accessible guides for bmorebenefits.com to help Maryland residents navigate government assistance programs. His research has been published in Nature, Operative Neurosurgery, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Population Health, with his Nature contribution focusing on antigen diversification in Trypanosoma brucei. Outside of research, Dharani is a certified EMT, a head teaching assistant in cognitive science, and a senior staff writer for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, where he covers Baltimore’s local food scene.

Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, infects over 30 percent of India’s population and can lead to brain inflammation, blindness, and severe outcomes in pregnant and immunocompromised individuals. Current diagnostics often fail to distinguish active infection from past exposure or convey disease severity. For his Fulbright-Nehru project at the Indian Institute of Science Parasite Epigenetics Lab under Dr. Meetali Singh, Dharani is investigating how microRNAs, small molecules that regulate gene activity, change during T. gondii infection in human blood samples. By identifying those miRNAs linked to disease and severity, mapping their target pathways, and testing them in human cell lines, his project aims to lay the groundwork for earlier, more accurate diagnostics and therapies.

Ananya Kamalakannan

Ananya Kamalakannan is a 2026 graduate from the Ohio State University, where she earned her BS in systems and behavioral neuroscience, with minors in medical humanities and global public health. Her academic and professional work centers on mental health equity, medical education, and the social determinants of health. As part of her honors undergraduate thesis, she conducted research on mental health trends among medical students by analyzing national datasets to investigate disparities in various mental health outcomes, including depression, anxiety, eating disorders, substance use, self-injurious behaviors, and suicidality.

Beyond research, Ananya is deeply involved in community engagement and student leadership. She was a Morrill Scholar at Ohio State and a recipient of the Kaplan Humanitarian Award, accolades that reflected her sustained leadership skills across civic and cultural organizations. She has also served as the president of Global Medical Brigades (a student-led volunteer organization that implements sustainable health systems), Red Saree (a nonprofit focused on health equity and awareness), and Tamil Sangam (a cultural outfit that preserves and promotes Tamil cultural heritage). Throughout her undergraduate career, Ananya was deeply engaged with South Asian communities across both the United States and India; during this time, she led mental wellness workshops for youth through Snehalaya, an NGO supporting women and children affected by poverty and HIV/AIDS, based in Ahmednagar, India.

A classically trained Indian dancer, and visual artist, Ananya is passionate about fostering cross-cultural dialogue through both public health and the arts. She hopes to become a physician-researcher focused on global mental health, medical education reform, and developing culturally grounded approaches to student well-being.

Ananya’s Fulbright-Nehru project involves a mixed-methods study examining the mental health of Indian medical students hosted at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru. The project is investigating how academic pressures and structural inequalities shape student mental health outcomes and treatment utilization. Drawing on her epidemiological research at Ohio State, Ananya is adapting validated survey instruments to the Indian context and conducting qualitative interviews with the students and faculty. She hopes to translate the findings into culturally grounded policy recommendations to improve institutional support systems and foster a generation of medical providers who embrace mental health as a priority.

Tenzin Dechen

Tenzin Dechen is a biostatistician with experience in healthcare delivery and data science. She holds an MPH in epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. Her work focuses on applying data analytics to understand clinical workflows, support care coordination, and inform health system improvement.

Tenzin spent nearly a decade at the Center for Healthcare Delivery Science at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Boston, where she worked with diverse health and population datasets, including electronic health record (EHR) data, to evaluate care delivery, assess quality, and support data-informed decision-making. Her work comprised statistical modeling, causal inference, and predictive analytics, with applications in population health and health equity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she contributed to the development of forecasting models to help anticipate patient demand and guide resource planning. She also codeveloped a mobility-based Business Risk Index using location data to examine patterns in transmission risk and support hospital operations.

Currently on a self-directed sabbatical, Tenzin is focusing on global health systems and digital health infrastructure. Her work emphasizes the use of EHR systems to improve data quality, workflow efficiency, and patient care in resource-limited settings.

Tenzin Dechen’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is exploring how an EHR system can support patient care and clinic operations at Sera Mey Health Center, located in a Tibetan settlement in southern India and serving both Tibetan and neighboring rural populations. Using historical paper records and newly digitized data, the project is examining patterns in patient care, identifying gaps in follow-up, and evaluating how workflow factors such as patient volume and wait times shape service delivery. By generating practical insights and tools tailored to the center’s needs, the project aims to support clinical workflows, improve efficiency, and enable more patient-centered healthcare in the resource-limited setting.

Lenore Rinder

Ms. Lenore Rinder is an independent filmmaker based in the United States. She holds an MFA degree in film/painting from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has worked as a photojournalist for newspapers in Wisconsin and Idaho, and as a staff photographer for the Ballet Folk of Moscow, a touring dance company based in Idaho. She has taught film, animation, and painting at UW-Milwaukee, and was also a producer-director with Time Warner Cable’s Community Television. For 12 years, she worked as a visual communications instructor for incarcerated teenagers at the Ethan Allen School for Boys, through Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections.

In 2013, fueled by her passion for wildlife conservation, she began to make documentaries on the subject, with a focus on the marginalized indigenous communities in India. Using the video as a lens to examine the impact of environmental degradation and animal extinction on humans, she has been exploring the intersection between nature conservation and social justice issues. Her short films feature: a covert cottage industry of fake tiger skin artisans; poachers finding alternative income catching and releasing urban monkeys; a family-run craft cooperative adjacent to a tiger park in Rajasthan; and an elephant sanctuary camp in Dubare, Karnataka. As a visual artist who paints and creates animation, Ms. Lenore weaves digital images into her live action documentary footage.

Her films have been screened at several international festivals, such as Ethnografilm Paris, the Athvikvaruni International Film Festival in Tamil Nadu, and the Rome Prisma Independent Film Awards. Her film, Kagaraja, was a winner at the Tagore International Film Festival, Bolpur, India, in 2021. Ms. Lenore has received three grants from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund. In 2019, the Indian Institute of World Culture invited her to screen her documentary, People of the Wild Tiger. In 2025, her four documentaries had their world premiere in Bengaluru.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Ms. Lenore is making a documentary titled “Kids for Tigers, Designing Their Future”. That will be the culmination of 13 years of research, working with nature guides, villagers, and educators. Through the project, she is also continuing to film the children who are part of an educational program called Kids for Tigers. Besides, she is engaging with students at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, where she is facilitating communication between Indian and American students on art, conservation, and culture.

James Pascoe

Prof. James Pascoe is an assistant professor of mathematics at Drexel University, working in various areas of mathematics. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego, under the guidance of Prof. Jim Agler in 2015. Prof. Pascoe’s international collaborations span the globe and a variety of mathematical topics, all united by the theme of using functional analysis to explore the semantic meaning of mathematics through a variety of avatars of mathematics. His existing collaborations with junior mathematicians in India include those with Sujit Sakharam Damase, Chandan Pradhan, and Nitin Tomar.

For his Fulbright-Nehru project, Prof. Pascoe is working with researchers at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, with a focus on creating material links between the operator theory research communities in the United States and India. As part of the project, Prof. Pascoe, inspired by the great Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, is visiting various institutes in India and speaking on topics in modern operator theory, while also helping junior mathematicians in establishing their research programs and connections with the global community.

Srikanta Mishra

“Blindness separates people from things; deafness separates people from people.” — Helen Keller

What if you struggle to follow conversations in a noisy restaurant or classroom, yet a hearing test tells you your hearing is “normal”? Why do some people hear effortlessly while others struggle long before any obvious hearing loss appears? These and many other questions that affect millions of people are at the center of Dr. Srikanta Mishra’s research.

Dr. Mishra is an audiologist, auditory neuroscientist, and educator who studies the earliest signs of hearing changes that may occur years before they become visible on standard hearing tests. He completed his schooling from Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya, a unique residential public school system designed to nurture talented students from diverse and often underserved communities. This early educational experience shaped his appreciation for opportunity, education, and the importance of expanding access across backgrounds. He later pursued higher education in India, completed doctoral training in the UK, and continued his research career in the U.S., giving him an international perspective on science, hearing healthcare, and education. He is currently a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

His research explores why some individuals, children and adults alike, experience listening difficulties despite appearing to have “normal” hearing. By combining neuroscience, clinical science, engineering, and computational approaches, Dr. Mishra seeks to identify subtle changes in the auditory system at an early stage; his endeavor is to improve how hearing problems are detected and treated. His work aims to move hearing healthcare beyond simply asking whether someone can hear sounds, toward understanding how people function in real-world environments. Supported by research funding from the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Mishra is also committed to mentoring future scientists and building international collaborations.

Dr. Mishra’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is addressing a growing global health challenge at the intersection of hearing and brain health. Today, approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide live with hearing loss, and more than 55 million people live with dementia. The project is focusing on hearing loss, one of the largest modifiable risk factors for dementia, and is examining how social and economic inequalities shape these conditions in low- and middle-income countries. Working with the Centre for Brain Research at the Indian Institute of Science, Dr. Mishra aims to improve early identification and intervention strategies that may help people maintain healthier hearing, healthier brains, and better quality of life as they age.

Punya Mishra

Dr. Punya Mishra is a professor at the Mary Lou Fulton College of Teaching and Learning Innovation (MLFC) at Arizona State University (ASU), with an affiliate appointment in its Design School. He is a senior fellow at the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution and a fellow at the Learning Engineering Institute (LEI) at ASU. Earlier, he had served as the director of Innovative Learning Futures at LEI and as the associate dean of scholarship and innovation at MLFC, where he led multiple initiatives in developing a future-forward, equity-driven, collaborative approach to educational research. He is internationally recognized for his work in educational technology; the role of creativity and aesthetics in learning; and the application of design to educational innovation. He has received over USD 11 million in grants, and has published over 200 articles and edited five books. A recipient of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology’s David H. Jonassen Excellence in Research Award, and with over 81,000 citations of his research, he is ranked among the top 2 percent of scientists worldwide (ranked number 91 in social science) and number 44 (number 4 in psychology) amongst scholars with the biggest influence on educational practice and policy. An AERA fellow and TED-Ed educator, he cohosts the award-winning Silver Lining for Learning and the Learning Futures podcasts. He is an award-winning instructor, and has taught courses at all levels in educational technology, educational psychology, design, and creativity. He is also an engaging public speaker and an accomplished visual artist.

Dr. Mishra’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining how educators and learners across India’s diverse educational landscape is making sense of generative AI. Combining engaged educational journalism with scholarly rigor, the project is partnering with Azim Premji University and other institutions to document real-time negotiations between AI’s promise and local realities through podcasting, blogging, teaching, and presenting. Dr. Mishra’s research is also tracing contextual innovations that emerge when advanced AI tools meet India’s varied conditions of language, connectivity, and social practice. The project will yield academic articles, practitioner briefs, and a book capturing this unrepeatable moment when communities are actively determining what AI becomes in education.

Anol Bhattacherjee

Dr. Anol Bhattacherjee is the Exide Professor in information systems and the director of the master’s program in artificial intelligence and business analytics at the University of South Florida. He has authored about 150 refereed publications, including 12 papers in Financial Times, 50 papers in journals, and seven papers in MIS Quarterly, the foremost journal in his discipline. For many years, he was on the editorial boards of MIS Quarterly and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. With nearly 50,000 citations to his credit, a 2021 Stanford University study ranked him as number 12 in the world in career-wide research impact in the information systems discipline. Dr. Bhattacherjee has also authored a copyright-free book on research methods, Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices, which has been downloaded over 2 million times from 229 countries on six continents, used at over 10,000 institutions, and translated into seven languages. His many awards and honors include the Stafford Beer Medal by the Operational Research Society, UK, the Fulbright-Nehru Distinguished Chair in 2019, and the first-place award at the prestigious Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) Innovation Cup Competition in 2023.

Dr. Bhattacherjee’s Fulbright-Nehru project is designing AI systems for societal good – such as to reduce societal polarization – and conducting behavioral experiments in terms of the use of these systems by the population and the impacts of such use. The project is collaborating with Indian scholars to conceptualize, design, conduct, and publish research on this topic and related ones. The project also serves several key objectives of the Government of India’s initiatives related to leveraging technology and science for societal benefit and improving human and institutional capacity for scientific research.

Aesha John

Dr. Aesha John is a professor of social work at Texas Christian University (TCU), where she teaches courses on care across the lifespan and an elective on grief and loss. Her scholarship focuses on disability, inclusion, parenting, and children’s media use, with a particular emphasis on understanding the lived experiences of families of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

Dr. John’s research spans multiple cultural contexts, including the United States and India. Her work aims to advance culturally responsive frameworks that center family strengths, improve service delivery, and promote inclusive practices. Her recent work examines children’s media use and parent–child relationships, highlighting how digital engagement intersects with family dynamics and children’s social–emotional development.

Her research has been widely published in leading journals on IDD, including the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. She has received the Disability Manuscript Award from the Council on Social Work Education and the Deans’ Award for Research and Creativity from TCU. She has also received grant funding twice from the Jerry M.D. Lewis Foundation, most recently to support her study on children’s media use and parent–child relationships.

Beyond research and teaching, Dr. John is committed to community engagement and experiential learning. She has led a book club for individuals with IDD and facilitated a job training program for individuals with IDD on the TCU campus. She regularly creates opportunities for her students to engage with vulnerable populations in the community, thereby fostering meaningful, relationship-centered learning experiences that bridge classroom knowledge with real-world practice.

Dr. John’s Fulbright-Nehru project is combining teaching and research to advance cross-cultural understanding of parenting and IDD. She is delivering modules on IDD and lifespan development to psychology and social work students at Christ University, Bengaluru. Her research is also examining parental reactions to their children’s autism diagnosis. Further, she is exploring how families understand, process, and adapt to a diagnosis across cultural contexts, with the aim of informing culturally sensitive, family-centered support and interventions.