Mumbai Archives - Page 2 of 4

Shrutika Gupta

Shrutika Gupta is a recent graduate of Rice University, where she earned a BSc in biosciences cum laude and completed minor studies in global health technologies and medical humanities. While at Rice, Gupta was awarded the Wagoner Fellowship to conduct research in global surgery at the University of Oxford. Her work examined disparities in clinical outcomes after pediatric surgery across different countries. Shrutika also spent time in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, with NEST360, an international alliance working to end preventable newborn deaths. There, she investigated the impact of hospital infrastructure on sick newborn care. She was also an undergraduate researcher in genome editing and neuroscience labs at the Bioscience Research Collaborative.

Shrutika is particularly passionate about developing accessible healthcare solutions. Through a Rice incubator program, she is developing a health intervention to improve access to maternal care in the rural areas of Texas. She has also collaborated on multiple medical device projects, including NeoTube, a neonatal feeding tube solution; ReVulva, a vulvar cancer training model (with Rice360 and the MD Anderson Cancer Center); and Brain Power, a low-cost intuitive EEG device (with Rice360, Georgetown MedStar, and the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Malawi). She was a finalist at the Johns Hopkins Healthcare Design Competition as part of Team NeoTube, and she has also presented her work on Brain Power at the Houston Global Health Conference.

Shrutika’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is investigating the impact of cultural practices on women’s engagement with healthcare systems during the postpartum period. As part of her study, she is interacting with patients, healthcare workers, and family members of patients to gather well-rounded and diverse perspectives. The goal is to identify trends that can help guide the development of interventions to minimize health inequities in India.

Shagun Gandhi

Shagun Gandhi is a 2025 graduate of Georgetown University, where she earned her BSc in human science with a minor in disability studies. Her academic and professional interests lie at the intersection of oncology, public health, and psychosocial care. As a medical scribe at George Washington University’s Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery Department, she works closely with surgeons, speech pathologists, and patients, which has deepened her understanding of the lived experience of head and neck cancer survivors. She is concurrently engaged in molecular genetics research at Georgetown, where she investigates DNA double-strand break repair mechanisms that contribute to genome instability and cancer. Her work contributed to a peer-reviewed publication in PLOS Genetics.

Shagun was selected as a Laidlaw Scholar and a SMURF Fellow through which she conducted independent research, mentored younger scholars, and presented findings at national conferences. Her leadership also extended to service initiatives, including her role as president of the Georgetown University Oncology Patient Support (GU-OPS) group, which works to improve the quality of life of patients at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. These experiences allowed her to develop expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, as well as gave her a multidimensional perspective on cancer care delivery.

Her broader interests include global oncology, disability advocacy, and medical humanities. She is passionate about building bridges between clinical medicine and research, with the ultimate goal of becoming a physician-scientist dedicated to improving survivorship outcomes for underserved populations.

Shagun’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is investigating the psychosocial experiences of head and neck cancer survivors in India. Partnering with the Tata Memorial Centre in Mumbai and the Government Cancer Hospital in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, she is conducting focus group discussions and interviews with survivors to explore themes such as emotional well-being, social support, and barriers to rehabilitation. Using thematic analysis and the NVivo software, she aims to identify culturally specific survivorship needs and thus inform patient-centered care models. Her work will generate actionable insights for oncology providers and also contribute to the development of long-term psychosocial support frameworks for cancer survivors in India.

Anuj Gandhi

Anuj Gandhi is a passionate mental health advocate and researcher who leads with love and light. He takes an interdisciplinary approach to build community-driven programs rooted in research, education, and storytelling.

Anuj has worked as a youth mental health advocate in several organizations, including the National Alliance on Mental Illness, WE ARE SAATH, The Steve Fund, The Trevor Project, and the Mental Health Literacy Collaborative. He is most proud of his work in improving mental health resources at his alma mater, Saint Louis University. He recently founded MyJyoti, a South Asian mental health advocacy, storytelling, and media platform and community organization.

Along with his commitment to advocacy and activism, Anuj is an experienced community-based researcher. His research interests broadly encompass community-driven mental health interventions, cultural identity and humility, complementary practices, and global mental health. He recently worked as a research specialist at the Institute of Juvenile Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois Chicago and as a Program Facilitator for Lurie Children’s Hospital. In these roles, he facilitated educational programs for youth of color, focused on civic engagement, activism, racial justice, health equity, and mindfulness as part of clinical trial interventions for youth well-being.

Anuj’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is examining how globalization-based acculturation influences young Indian adults’ attitudes toward mental health and treatment; in this context, he is also comparing Western psychiatric care and traditional Indian medicine (Ayush). Using a sequential explanatory design, the study is conducting a quantitative survey and focus group discussions with treatment seekers, practitioners, and advocates. The findings aim to inform culturally responsive mental healthcare and provide an educational toolkit for globalized Indians.

Roshni Bhat

Roshni Bhat received her BS in biopsychology from Tufts University in May 2023. After graduation, she transitioned from her role as an ophthalmic technician to clinical research assistant at Massachusetts Eye and Ear where she joined the Harvard Ophthalmology Metabolomics in Retina (HOMeR) lab, investigating biomarkers for age-related macular degeneration. In this role, she has successfully presented twice at the annual Association of Research in Vision and Ophthalmology conference and most recently at a New England Ophthalmology Society meeting. Prior to her work at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Roshni had worked closely with ophthalmologists across the globe to help organize the first Global Refractive Surgery Summit which addressed systemic and specific barriers to accessing refractive surgery, a procedure that can help reduce preventable blindness stemming from uncorrected refractive error. Roshni has also assisted with education research and program design at Tufts University School of Medicine’s Center for Science Education.

Beyond her professional endeavors, Roshni is a lifelong learner who loves to teach as well. She is a classically trained Bharatanatyam dancer, plays tennis and soccer, and is also a trained violinist and vocalist. She is an avid reader and baker who loves to explore.

Roshni’s Fulbright-Nehru research is evaluating the functional vision outcomes for pediatric retinoblastoma patients in order to provide valuable insight into the current standard of care and the efficacy of new treatments. Based in Mumbai, she is working closely with the physicians at Tata Memorial Hospital to assess whether new technologies that salvage parts of the eye are providing significant functional vision outcomes in retinoblastoma patients.

Brinda Gaitonde Nayak

Ms. Brinda Gaitonde Nayak works remotely as a consultant writing nomination dossiers and site management plans for World Heritage Sites in India while being based in USA. She is also the co-founder of The Bombay Heritage Walks, an organization that undertakes architectural walking tours in Mumbai. She holds a master’s in architectural conservation from Sir J.J. College of Architecture and a bachelor’s from the Academy of Architecture, both in Mumbai. After staying away from architecture for several years, Ms. Nayak decided to relearn the profession by completing the George Mason University’s graduate certificate program in digital history, which was where her vision for the Practical Preservation Series took shape. She has written several articles, co-authored papers and other publications, as well as written a book of historical fiction titled The Path. She is currently pursuing her PhD in conservation studies from the University of York, UK.

Ms. Nayak has won several prestigious grants that include the Charles Wallace India Trust fellowship, library research grants from Getty Foundation and Duke University, and has also received the National Diversity Scholar award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Besides, her work on restoring buildings in India have won several UNESCO Asia-Pacific awards.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Ms. Nayak, who also teaches an undergraduate elective course, Conservation Basics, in a hybrid format at the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, is developing this course for broader applicability in other areas in India to promote greater involvement of emerging professionals in the field of historic preservation. The course is also introducing to the students current digital tools in documentation and preservation.

Arun Yethiraj

Dr. Arun Yethiraj was born in India and received his BTech in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He received an MS from Louisiana State University, a PhD from North Carolina State University, working with Professor Carol Hall, and did postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois, working with Professor Kenneth Schweizer. He joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin in 1993. His research interest is in the statistical mechanics of complex fluids, including polymers, surfactants, ionic liquids, and biopolymers.

His hobbies include tennis, guitar, and running.

“Active matter” refers to a class of systems that are composed of self-propelled entities that convert stored energy into directed motion. The goal of Dr. Yethiraj’s Fulbright-Nehru research is to obtain a fundamental understanding of active matter in complex environments. His research project at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is using computational studies with machine learning analyses to reproduce experimental studies on robotic and molecular systems in order to obtain a fundamental understanding of the effect of crowding and noise on active processes, thereby allowing for the elucidation of transport mechanisms in other systems.

Emily Kumpel

Dr. Emily Kumpel is an associate professor in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research advances sustainable and equitable drinking water systems through innovative approaches to water quality, household storage, and data science applications. With over 40 peer-reviewed publications on topics such as intermittent water supply, disinfection byproducts, water quality monitoring, and small water systems, she has secured more than $15 million in funding from NSF, EPA, Massachusetts agencies, and private foundations. Her current projects include an NSF CAREER award investigating household water storage as a reliability strategy, and extensive partnership work with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP). She leads comprehensive drinking water assistance programs for the state of Massachusetts, including support for complying with the Safe Drinking Water Act, research on emerging contaminants among small and disadvantaged communities, lead testing in schools and childcare facilities, and small systems technical assistance. She has received multiple awards such as the College of Engineering Barbara H. and Joseph J. Goldstein Outstanding Junior Faculty Award (2024), Outstanding Teaching Award (2022), and a PIT@UMass Faculty Fellowship (2024). Dr. Kumpel serves as associate editor for AWWA Water Science and has extensive international field research experience, having lived and conducted research for over six years across India and countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

Before joining UMass in 2017, she was a senior research scientist at Aquaya Institute in Kenya, where she led water-quality monitoring and evaluation projects across multiple countries. She earned her PhD and MS in civil and environmental engineering from UC Berkeley and a BS in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Kumpel’s Fulbright-Nehru project is developing metrics for water supply continuity and predictability, testing new measurement methods, and analyzing the sources of unpredictability. She is conducting her fieldwork in and around Mumbai with the faculty at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. The intended outcomes of the research are at least two co-authored manuscripts, mutual student mentorship, and establishment of networks to enable future research endeavors.

John (Ike) Uri

Mr. John Uri is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Brown University. He earned his BA in Sociology from the University of Kansas in 2017, before serving as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Tajikistan. He earned an MA in Sociology at Brown University in 2020. For his master’s thesis, Mr. Uri conducted interview-based research in India, working to understand how climate adaptation – efforts to reduce vulnerability to climate change – occurs in Indian cities. Such efforts are often funded by international donors, and that project illustrated how consultants, positioned between these donors and local urban officials, are a necessary part of urban adaptation planning in India. With the support of this Fulbright grant, Mr. Uri’s dissertation research will focus on these consultants and their role in urban climate adaptation, considering adaptation efforts in the city of Mumbai.

Apart from these primary research interests, Mr. Uri has conducted research at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change conferences (the UN climate negotiations). In this capacity, Mr. Uri has considered the negotiations from a critical perspective, paying particular attention to the topics of climate finance and adaptation, as well as the nascent issue of loss and damage.

Cities in India face intensifying risks from the climate crisis, necessitating climate adaptation (actions and policies that reduce climate vulnerability). Urban adaptation planning is increasingly common in India, often carried out by consultants. This Fulbright-Nehru project intends to focus on these consultants, who coordinate the interests of international donors and urban officials. Using ethnographic research methods, Mr. Uri aims to embed himself in a firm in Mumbai that provides these services. The goal of this project is to better understand the ‘best practices’ of urban adaptation planning and how international norms and features of local governance impact those practices.

Maya Taylor

Ms. Maya Nashva Lyon Taylor graduated from Vanderbilt University with a degree in Public Health and Asian Studies and a minor in Spanish. In her time as a student, she was a Research Assistant in Dr. Gilbert Gonzales’ LGBTQ+ health laboratory. Ms. Taylor’s specific interest in the health of bisexual folks, like herself, led her to study how having a same-sex or opposite-sex partner could impact the mental health, physical health, and substance use of bi+ folks across the United States. Under Dr. Gonzales’ mentorship, Ms. Taylor published a paper that encapsulated this work entitled, “Health Disparities Among Women by Sexual Orientation Identity and Same-Sex or Different-Sex Cohabiting Partnership Status” in the journal Women’s Health Issues.

While taking a semester to study in Delhi, Ms. Taylor began studying how the 2019 Transgender Persons Protection of Rights Act mandating folks to get surgery in order to change their legal gender marker was affecting trans and other gender diverse folk in India. She spoke to several trans activists and medical providers and documented their experiences. Ms. Taylor plans to continue and expand this work during her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship. In the last year of college, Ms. Taylor wrote a thesis applying medical sociology theories of historical trauma to the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. As a part of her thesis, she wrote a short story about an Indian doctor treating patients dying of HIV/AIDS in New York City whose physician parents lived through the Partition and participated in mass sterilization campaigns of the Emergency era. After graduation, Ms. Taylor worked as a Health Educator at the Center on Halsted, a social service agency in Chicago, providing HIV testing, PrEP Navigation, and Care Coordination for her clients in English and Spanish. In her free time, Ms. Taylor loves to try cooking new dishes, playing instruments, and going for hikes.

Under the 2019 Transgender Person’s (Protection of Rights) Act, discrimination against trans people is criminalized. Despite these protections, the Act requires trans/gender diverse Indians to undergo surgery before they can legally change their gender. This study aims to determine how the Act impacts the health of transgender communities by investigating how legal documentation of gender shapes access to health resources, how healthcare providers are held accountable for providing high quality gender-affirming care, how trans and gender diverse people hope to change this Act to better reflect their needs, and how this Act impacts gender diverse visibility in society.