Prof. Bijayalaxmi Nanda, Principal of Miranda House and Professor of Political Science, is a distinguished academic leader and scholar. A recipient of the ICSSR Doctoral Fellowship and the Delhi University Vice-Chancellor’s Teacher’s Excellence Award (2017), she has been honoured with several prestigious honours, including the Kamala Power Women Award (2024), Shiksha Seva Samman by Delhi Teacher’s University (2024), and the Aalekh Foundation Women Achiever Award. She also received the Pt. Deendayal Upadhya Excellence Award (2019) and the Best Principal Award by National Edu Trust of India for her commitment to promoting Sustainable Development Goals in education. During her tenure, Miranda House has ranked among India’s top colleges under the National Institutional Ranking Framework for nine consecutive years.
Host Institution India: University of Notre Dame
C.T. Aravindakumar
Prof. C.T. Aravindakumar is the Vice-Chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala (since 2023) and a Senior Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences. He has over 400 publications in international journals/conference proceedings. He was the team leader of India’s Arctic Expedition in July 2017. He was the Chairman of the Examination Reform Commission (Govt of Kerala, 2021). During his tenure as Vice-Chancellor, the University bagged A++ from NAAC, Category 1 institutional status from the UGC, 43rd position (and 17th in State University category) in NIRF and Global ranking (TIMES) 501-600. He has been a visiting professor/scientist at reputed universities and research organizations in 17 countries across Europe, the USA, Australia, and Asia.
Stuti Benal
Ms. Stuti Benal is a teacher of foreign languages and has been teaching French at Alliance Française de Chandigarh. She recently completed her master’s in English from the department of English and Cultural Studies, Panjab University, Chandigarh. In addition, she also holds a master’s in journalism and mass communication from the School of Communication Studies, Panjab University.
Ms. Benal has worked in France as an English language assistant as a part of the prestigious Asisstant de Langue program for two years where she taught high school and college students while sharing her culture with them and developing her teaching methodologies. She has written for magazines and university newspapers in the past and continues to be an avid writer. Passionate about languages, she is currently learning Spanish and also working towards perfection in her native language, Pahari.
As a Fulbright Foreign Language Assistant and cultural ambassador at the University of Notre Dame, Ms. Benal aspires to share her language with the students through innovative teaching strategies while incorporating the culture of her country in the classroom through music, food, literature, and films. She looks forward to enhancing her understanding of this increasingly multicultural world, which for her finds its reflection in the manifoldness of the Indian experience.
Payal Priya
Ms. Payal Priya is Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for English Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has taught several courses in English language and literature at the undergraduate level and has been a language trainer for four years. She is pursuing her doctoral research, after completing her master’s in English literature from St. Xavier’s College, Ranchi, where she was part of an amateur theatre group. She has participated and won accolades in acting and public speaking and is trained in Kathak. Her doctoral research looks at the meaning of the sacral, particularly in Rāmlīlā, and the methods of creating the sacral in a performance. Her work also looks at the memory of the sacral and how it is transformed, transmuted, and transported in urban spaces and with the diaspora through semiotic translations. Her areas of interest are performance studies, memory studies, identity studies, Indian aesthetics, and philosophy.
Ms. Priya has presented her work at several national and international conferences and has published several academic papers. She writes short stories and poems, which have been published in reputable magazines and anthologies. She designed and conducted a workshop on creative writing for Umran, a Delhi based NGO.
As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Priya is teaching Hindi at the University of Notre Dame. Through this program, she wishes to share the culture of her country, experience another culture, and understand and explore the possibilities of building a more inclusive and accepting world.
Nadimpalli Siva Kumar
Dr. Nadimpalli Siva Kumar is Senior Professor at the School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH), Hyderabad, Telangana. Supported by the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the German Research Foundation, Dr. Kumar developed and coordinated the first international research training group in Molecular and Cellular Glycosciences with the University of Muenster, Germany. He is also coordinating EU supported projects: “Internationalization and Virtual Exchange: Borderless Between EU and Asian Countries” and NAMASTE, and NAMASTE+ supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). His areas of research include protein biochemistry, cell, and molecular biology, glycobiology, and bio-nanotechnology. He received his master’s in biochemistry from Andhra University and his Ph.D. from CFTRI, Mysuru, Karnataka.
Asima Sahu
Dr. Asima Sahu is Professor of Political Science at the School of Social Sciences, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack. She has more than three decades of teaching and research experience. Her research areas include South Asian affairs, gender studies, Indian political processes, development studies, and nuclear non-proliferation. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Hyderabad, her M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and her Ph.D. from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. She has published nine books and several research articles in peer-reviewed journals and has participated in several national and international conferences. In addition to successfully completing research projects sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Dr. Sahu is an Assessor at NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) and visits different higher education institutions for their accreditation evaluation.
Tanya Mary Koshy
Tanya Mary Koshy is Senior Program Manager at the Office for International Affairs, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. At TISS, she oversees all operational, administrative, and program management aspects of the international office. She develops, facilitates, and organizes exchange and teaching programs, including dual and joint degrees, research projects, international admissions, field exposure, and cultural immersion activities for students and researchers, workshops, and high-level conferences. She has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Pune and a master’s degree in international security from Sciences Po, Paris. Before joining TISS, she worked in the fields of anti-trafficking, conservation, sustainable development, and country of origin research.
Anil Kumar Tripathi
Dr. Anil Kumar Tripathi is Professor of Biotechnology and Director of the Institute of Science at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. At BHU, Dr. Tripathi was instrumental in establishing a DST-supported state-of-the-art Sophisticated Analytical Technical Help Institute (SATHI) and a BIRAC-supported Bioincubator for Nurturing Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies (BioNEST). Since their inception, he has served as Coordinator of both SATHI-BHU and BioNEST-BHU. Dr. Tripathi obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in botany from Banaras Hindu University and has published 92 peer-reviewed articles. His research focus on genetics, genetic engineering, systems biology, and synthetic biology of a plant growth promoting bacterium. He is a recipient of the prestigious J C Bose National Fellowship in addition to several other national awards and grants.
Prabin Kumar Panigrahi
Dr. Prabin Kumar Panigrahi is the Dean (Faculty) and Professor of Information Systems at Indian Institute of Management Indore. Prior to this, he was the Chair of Post Graduate Programme and Chair of Executive Post Graduate Programme of the institute. He holds his master’s from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India, and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. His current teaching and research interests include Emerging Technologies, Technology Adoption, Analytics, Social Inclusion in Information System, Cyber Security, and Artificial Intelligence. Prabin has various professional honours, awards, and fellowships both internationally and nationally across teaching, research, and industry. He has published several research articles and cases in peer reviewed international journals and case repositories of repute. He is also a member of the editorial board for some international journals. Prabin is also member of high-level committees in state, central government, and corporate bodies.
C. Krishna Mohan
Dr. C. Krishna Mohan is Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and has served as Dean of Public and Corporate Relations at the institute. He was also the founder Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Hyderabad. He received his M.Tech. from NITK Surathkal and his Ph.D. from IIT Madras. Dr. Krishna Mohan heads the Visual Learning and Intelligence Lab at IIT Hyderabad, working in the research areas of video content analysis, computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings. He serves as a reviewer for several reputed international conferences and IEEE journals, and is Senior Member of IEEE; Member of ACM; AAAI Member; Life Member of ISTE; and Fellow of IEI, IETE, and TAS.