Host Institution USA: Goa University

Samantha (Sammy) Plezia

Ms. Samantha Plezia is a recent graduate of Brown University where she studied Public Health and Hispanic Studies on a pre-clinical psychology track. Her research interests include eating disorders, global mental health, and strengths-based interventions. She currently works as a Research Assistant at Brown University’s Center for Health Promotion and Health Equity on several studies focused on substance use and sexual health. Most recently, she supported a community-based participatory research study aimed at designing interventions to reduce stimulant-involved overdoses in New England, as well as an intervention study to promote pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake among men who engage in sex work. Prior to this role, she worked as a Research Assistant at Brown’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies and Suffolk University’s HEART Laboratory on projects related to nicotine use among LGBTQ+ adolescents and racial disparities in chronic pain care utilization, respectively.

Ms. Plezia’s interest in global mental health first arose after working in Kenya, where she served as a temporary director at a center for survivors of female genital mutilation. She has since completed internships in Mexico City, helping facilitate group therapy sessions with survivors of trafficking, and, most recently, with Project HOPE’s humanitarian aid team in Colombia. Ms. Plezia also volunteered as a medical interpreter for Latin American immigrant patients at the Rhode Island Free Clinic throughout her undergraduate studies.

Through this work, Ms. Plezia’s commitment to supporting individuals who are experiencing mental health concerns has grown significantly. She has brought this passion to her academic coursework, completing independent studies on eating behaviors among communities that have been historically excluded from research. Her undergraduate honors thesis explored the impact of migration on Latin American immigrant women’s eating habits and beauty ideals. Ms. Plezia also recently published her qualitative study on maladaptive eating behaviors, body image, and religion among South Asian individuals. Following her Fulbright-Nehru grant, she hopes to earn her PhD in Psychology and work towards her goal of developing culturally-informed mental health interventions in collaborative and sustainable ways.

While there is a growing body of literature on the harmful association between alcohol use, eating behaviors, and body image among adolescents, the topics remain understudied in India, which is home to one of the world’s youngest populations. Through her Fulbright-Nehru project, Ms. Plezia aims to use qualitative methodologies to answer the question, what is the relationship between alcohol use, eating behaviors, and body image preferences among Indian adolescents who drink alcohol? Through conducting semi-structured interviews using the principles of culturally sensitive research, Ms. Plezia hopes to illuminate Indian adolescents’ voices and provide insight on the aforementioned health phenomena among the population.

Lucas Joshi

Mr. Lucas Cole Joshi is scholar of Afro-Asian studies. Born to an Indian father and biracial mother, Mr. Joshi now attends Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, graduating in the spring of 2022. At Dartmouth, he served as the Founder and Co-President of cultural magazine, Dear Dartmouth and as the Founder and President of (post)-colonial book club, Chapter Two. A recipient of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, Mr. Joshi worked alongside undergraduate scholars of color in the production of his own research grounded in themes of mourning and memory in a (post)-colonial lens. His honors thesis, entitled “With Deepest Sympathy, a New Mourning in the Hour of Basque Reconciliation,” complicates notions of victimhood and reconciliation as it would lend itself to the post-terrorism era of the Basque Country. Mr. Joshi is a co-author of the book, Transatlantic Letters: An Epistolary Exchange Between Basque and US Students on Violence and Community published within the Human Rights Collection of Deusto University.

Upon completion of the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Mr. Joshi will pursue his PhD in Comparative Literature at Brown University. At Brown, he will work alongside professors Leela Gandhi and Leila Lenhen in responding to questions of the Indian Ocean as an autonomous body of violation and solidarity. Ultimately, he intends to realign Afro-Asian Studies through an emphasis on critical mixed-race theories and affinities.

A relic of the Portuguese colonial era, Goa’s Civil Code presents a complex story of labor governance and rights, particularly with respect to domestic workers throughout the community. Through this research, Mr. Joshi’s Fulbright-Nehru project is investigating the contemporary conditions that define the lives and livelihoods of domestic workers in Goa. Further, he is contextualizing domestic labor as a continuation of the legacy of Afro-Asian enslavement. The project represents a deeper inquiry into the labor that has stood as the backbone of Goa: once the “Rome of the East” and now the heart of Indian interculturality.

Anuka Upadhye

Anuka Upadhye is a recent graduate from George Washington University where she studied international affairs with a concentration in international environmental studies and a minor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. Anuka’s research interests include gendered adaptation to climate change, and she has conducted research on agriculture and adaptation in Maharashtra, India. Professionally, she has worked on environmental issues at The White House, House of Representatives, and think tanks such as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Center for American Progress.

Although Goa’s coastline is only 104 kilometers long, its fishing industry is considered one of the most economically and culturally significant entities of the country. However, recent studies have shown that climate change has already been affecting Goa, especially its fisheries sector. Additionally, it has been disproportionately impacting the marginalized communities. Specifically in Goa, women who work in the fishing industry experience exclusion and marginalization. As climate change-induced disruptions increase the institutional need for comprehensive adaptation plans and economic relief, the invisibility of women’s labor in this industry may exclude them from such adaptation strategies. Anuka’s Fulbright-Nehru research project aims to provide a more gender-disaggregated data on fisheries in Goa.