Host City USA: Kolkata

Evan Tims

Evan Tims is interested in the relationship between water, climate planning, and development in South Asia. Evan first traveled to Kolkata in 2018 as a Critical Language Scholar, and again in 2019 on the same grant, which were opportunities that allowed him to develop his skills in Bangla. In 2019, he graduated from Bard College with a joint major in written arts and human rights with a focus on anthropology. He then worked for the City Government of New York for almost two years before being named a Henry J. Luce Scholar. As a Luce Scholar, Evan studied in Nepal and researched water planning in the hydropower sector with Policy Entrepreneurs Inc., a Kathmandu-based NGO. He also studied and worked with a number of other organizations, including La.Lit magazine, where he conducted a creative writing workshop on climate change. This project led him to conduct more workshops and publish several works of climate storytelling from young writers in Nepal and Bangladesh. Currently, Evan works as a program associate with Activate, a U.S. nonprofit that funds scientists working on climate-related technologies.

For his Fulbright-Nehru project, Evan is conducting ethnographic research on the perceptions about Kolkata’s water future among distinct communities with connections to the Hooghly River. By balancing his work between groups of urban planners and those who have other relationships with the river, he is studying the differences between professionalized, scientific, and lived experiences of Kolkata’s water. Evan is also seeking to understand the complex, layered relationships between stakeholder communities as they seek to negotiate the future of water in a rapidly developing city.

Catherine Nelli

Catherine Nelli completed her BA with honors from Brown University in May 2023. There she studied Sanskrit classics, comparative literature, and international and public Affairs. Catherine also completed two senior honors theses, “On Nineteenth-Century Indology: Divergences between Sanskrit and Colonial French and English Reception of Jayadeva’s Gītagovinda” and “Between Empire and Post-Colonial Nation-Building: A Comparative Analysis of Nationalism’s Role in French India’s Decolonization in Chandernagore and Pondicherry (1947–1954)”. She is interested in colonial, transcultural literary reception, Sanskrit commentaries, and Bengali interactions with Sanskrit texts.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Catherine is accessing the Asiatic Society of Bengal, the Bhaktivedanta Research Center in Kolkata, the French Institute of Pondicherry, and the Records Centre archives in Puducherry. She is also working with her affiliates in the Sanskrit and comparative literature departments at Jadavpur University and the École française d’Extrême-Orient to investigate French and English colonial reception of the Gītagovinda, a classical Sanskrit love poem, in tandem and tension with intracultural Sanskrit and Bengali commentarial receptions.

Devin Creed

Devin Creed is a PhD candidate in South Asian history at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He has completed field exams in modern South Asian history, global British empire, food history, and science and empire. Devin’s dissertation examines the changes in the practices and ideologies of “giving for eating” in the context of famines in nineteenth- and twentieth-century South Asia. He works with sources in Bangla, Hindi, Urdu, and English. At Duke, Devin has been a Kenan Graduate Fellow, a Capper Fellow in intellectual history, and a fellow at the PhD Lab in Digital Knowledge. He has made public presentations on: the erotica of the pickle in South Asian literature and history; traces of Portuguese cuisine in modern West Bengal; the political theory of B.R. Ambedkar; and the history of Catholic missions in Meghalaya. His research interests include metabolic and ecological histories, food and fermentation, and capitalism and imperialism.

He has previously received grants to conduct research in Philadelphia (on the Knights of Labor), London (on British famine policy), Northern Ireland (on martyrdom in the Irish Republican Army), and India (on famine relief). He received his MA in modern European history from Villanova University (Pennsylvania) and his BA in economics and English literature from Hillsdale College (Michigan).

Devin is an avid cook and food experimenter who spends a good deal of his time pickling, fermenting, baking, and cooking. He enjoys reading science fiction, watching films, backpacking, hiking, singing, and learning languages.

Devastating famines punctuated British colonial rule in India, a period that saw famines in Bengal in 1770 and 1943 which killed over 10 million people. Devin’s Fulbright-Nehru project is arguing that the Indian responses to states of endemic malnutrition and famine played a significant role in creating the postcolonial regimes of food charity – what he calls “giving for eating” – in India today. Devin’s research is being driven by the following question: how did inherited understandings and practices of gifting food change in the face of widespread famine, new ideas of Western humanitarianism, and the birth of modern nutrition science?

Jeffrey Withey

Prof. Jeffrey Withey received a BA in biology from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan. He also did postdoctoral work in bacterial pathogenesis at the University of Michigan. In 2006, he joined the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit and now holds the rank of professor.

Prof. Withey’s research has focused on enteric bacterial pathogens, primarily Vibrio cholerae, the cause of human cholera. He has studied the regulation of V. cholerae virulence and identified factors in the human gut that can enhance or suppress virulence. In recent years, the focus of Withey’s lab has moved to studying environmental reservoirs for V. cholerae and other human pathogens, including Shigella, Salmonella, and the adherent-invasive E. coli. To facilitate these studies, he has developed models for these enteric bacterial pathogens in a natural aquatic host, the zebrafish (Danio rerio).

In his Fulbright project in India at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), Prof. Withey is developing new environmental models for Campylobacter and Enterotoxigenic E. coli in zebrafish, together with his Indian collaborators. These pathogens cause millions of cases of severe diarrhea per year, both in the developing world and in the U.S. In particular, childhood diarrhea in the developing world is highly associated with stunting, which can cause lifelong effects on health. The environmental life cycles of these pathogens are poorly understood and the goal of the research is to determine how they survive and thrive in environmental niches such as fish. Wild fish, both from nearby waterbodies and from fish markets, are also being examined to determine if major human enteric pathogens are carried in their guts. The long-term goal of these studies is to facilitate bioremediation to reduce or eliminate the major causes of diarrhea in the developing world.

Sunanda Sanyal

Originally from India, Dr. Sunanda Sanyal is currently a professor of art history and critical studies at the College of Art & Design of Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has been teaching at this institution since 1999. He has a PhD in art history from Emory University (2000), an MFA in art history from Ohio University (1993), and an MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego (1990).

Dr. Sanyal’s research interests include contemporary artists from former colonies in global discourses, and politics of representation and identity. He has chaired panels on contemporary artists of color at various conferences, including those of the College Art Association, the African Studies Association, the Arts Council of the African Studies Association, and the American Council of South and Southeast Asian Art. He has published articles and reviews of contemporary art in journals and contributed chapters to volumes of essays on art history and criticism. Some of his publications are: “Critiquing the Critique: El Anatsui and the Politics of Inclusion”, World Art (Routledge); “‘Being Modern’: Identity Debates and Makerere’s Art School in the 1960s”, A Companion to Modern African Art (Wiley-Blackwell); and “Teaching Art History at an Art School: Making Sense from the Margin”, Transforming Classroom Culture: Inclusive Pedagogical Approaches (Palgrave Macmillan). In 2009, Dr. Sanyal produced and directed a two-part documentary film, A Homecoming Spectacle, on the visual culture of Durga Pujo in Kolkata, focusing on the involvement of contemporary artists in the décor of the festival. Currently, he is also serving as a content fellow for SmartHistry.org; besides, he is working on a book project on a history of civic statuary in Kolkata, India.

Dr. Sanyal’s Fulbright-Nehru project is constructing a historical narrative across three phases of Kolkata’s civic statuary: the colonial commemoration of prominent men of the British Raj; the post-Independence celebration of the leaders of Indian freedom struggle; and the current populist trend of statues of cultural celebrities. This comparative inquiry of the three phases is tracing the evolving role of this genre of public images in shaping Kolkata’s visual and political landscapes. The aim is to locate points of overlap and divergence that illuminate the dual role of Kolkata’s public statues as both aesthetic markers and tools of political identity.

Anushka Kulkarni

Anushka Kulkarni is a PhD candidate in musicology at UC Davis. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music in vocal performance and music history from the University of Delaware. Her primary research interests are in 18th-century opera, Rabindra Sangeet, and postcolonial studies. Her dissertation, “The Empire Sings Back: Operatic Histories of British-Indian Colonial Encounter”, engages in a transnational study of both European opera and Bengali musical drama, and their intersections with the empire. Anushka’s research has been supported by the UC Davis Dean’s Graduate Summer Fellowship. In 2023, she was the recipient of a Critical Language Scholarship.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Anushka is conducting archival work at the National Library, the West Bengal State Archives, and Asiatic Society, all situated in Kolkata, as well as at the Rabindra Bhavan Library and Archives in Santiniketan. This archival research will contribute to her dissertation on opera and British-Indian colonial encounter in 19th- and 20th-century Calcutta. Her work is also examining the complex and often contradictory representations of coloniality in musical drama. Besides, she is accessing primary source material on the presence and reception of Italian opera in 19th-century Calcutta as well as on the musical drama, or gitinatya, of the Bengali polymath, Rabindranath Tagore.

Joseph Engmark

Joseph Engmark is pursuing his PhD in mathematical statistics from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Maryland. His research interests focus on design-based probability sample surveys. Since 2018, Joseph has been working in the Center for Statistical Research and Methodology at the U.S. Census Bureau. Prior to joining the bureau, he taught mathematics at secondary schools in Liberia and Malawi as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. Joseph has a broad interest in nature, cultural exchange, and the global community.

Under the Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, John is collaborating with researchers at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata. The research project is focusing on capture-recapture methods, a survey sampling technique used to estimate totals in a finite population. These methods are widely used in practice, including in epidemiology, wildlife conservation, and official statistics, such as a census.

Neha Basu

Neha Basu, a Rhode Island native, graduated from Pitzer College with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology. Her honors-level senior thesis was called “The Collection Being More than the Sum of the Parts: The Role of Identity Integration and Racialization in Multiracial Students’ Experiences”, for which she conducted a survey and interviews with multiracial college students. Neha has served as a student representative on the Faculty Executive Committee as a fellow at the Writing Center. In 2023, she was fortunate to collaborate with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice in street vending research and policy advocacy, which sparked her interest in global street vending regulation as an intersection of various social and political factors. She has received the Kallick Community Service Award in recognition of her work in this area. In the future, Neha plans to attend law school, with the goal of becoming a movement attorney.

Street food vendors are a key part of urban life in India, yet they are excluded from the formal economy and often face restrictive regulations, making vending an interstice of sociopolitical, economic, and legal forces. These come together for street vendors in Kolkata, where such vending falls within the jurisdiction of two recently passed national- and state-level laws designed to regulate the practice. Neha’s Fulbright-Nehru project is utilizing a participatory action methodology to investigate the nature of Kolkata vendors’ interactions and navigations in terms of the law, what the local vending landscape reveals about conceptions of public space, and what it reveals about culture and economic factors.

Mary (Dyan) McGuire

Dr. Mary (Dyan) McGuire is the director of the criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) programs at Saint Louis University (SLU). She also founded and directs the CCJ BA and JD program at SLU. She holds a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center and a PhD in criminology and criminal justice from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Prior to entering academia, she worked as a judicial clerk for the first female justice of the Missouri Supreme Court. She has also worked as an assistant attorney general for the State of Missouri and as an associate with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal.

Dr. McGuire is a committed educator. She has received numerous teaching prizes, including the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award and was recently named the Reichmann Professor for Excellence in Teaching at SLU. She has been spearheading efforts at inclusive, multicultural education at SLU and has developed a number of classes on the subject, including “Multiculturalism for CJ Professionals”. Her research interests involve the intersection of law and practice, systemic race and gender bias as well as violence that impacts women. Her work has been published extensively in peer-reviewed journals like the Journal of Criminal Justice and Law, Gender Issues, and Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health.

Dr. McGuire’s Fulbright-Nehru project is designed to expand students’ understanding of the problem of gender bias as manifested in social structures like the legal system and social arrangements like patriarchy and how these circumstances facilitate acts of violence and oppression against women and girls. As part of the project, she is teaching three classes at the National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata: “Women’s Rights and International Law”; Understanding Serial Killers through Criminology”; and “Violence Against Women”. All three classes focus on gender equity, violence against women, and/or the social construction of crime, and is intended to expand, especially in the context of domestic and international legal systems, her students’ understanding of social forces influencing the lived experiences of women and girls.

Liesl Schwabe

Ms. Liesl Schwabe is a writer and educator. Her essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Words Without Borders, and LitHub. She was awarded the 2020 Donald Murray Prize and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Ms. Schwabe has been a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar and was a scholar associate at the Institute of Language Studies and Research Kolkata, where she facilitated writing workshops for the faculty and graduate students. In 2024, she was named an English Language Specialist by the U.S. Department of State. Formerly the director of the Writing Program at Yeshiva College, she currently oversees the Writing Center and the Writing Across the Curriculum program at Berkshire Community College. She holds an MFA in nonfiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars.

The teaching portion of Ms. Schwabe’s Fulbright-Nehru project involves setting up writing workshops for undergraduate and graduate students; it is also working on the professional development of the faculty interested in integrating more writing instruction into their classes. For the research portion of this project, she is writing a collection of essays that explore specific instances of U.S. and Indian interactions – artistic, environmental, and social. The cornerstone essay is focusing on the play, Maanusher Adhikare (The Rights of Man), written and performed in Bengali in 1968, which is on the 1930s trials of the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama. Blending personal narrative, historical context, and contemporary reporting, the collection is about the limitations and possibilities of solidarity, while illuminating upon interdependence and shared humanity.

Ultimately, Ms. Schwabe hopes to establish a writing and research center in Kolkata which will serve as a resource for a consortium of public universities, with its workshops and one-on-one support for student and faculty, along with research and publication. She believes that writing centers help foster curiosity and exchange of ideas, on the page, around the campus, and in the world.