Host Institution USA: Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Madhura Shembekar

Madhura Shembekar, originally from Scottsdale, Arizona, is a recent graduate from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with a degree in science, technology, and international affairs (concentration: energy/environment), and a minor in Spanish. She has strong research interests in climate adaptation, sustainable urban development, and environmental migration and displacement. She has worked for the Kuskokwim Watershed Coalition, conducting a risk assessment of mercury mobilization in Alaska, and for the Georgetown Climate Center, researching state- and local-level climate adaptation policy.

At Georgetown University, she was awarded honors for completion of a thesis on climate-induced migration and displacement in South Asia. A Lannan Fellow, Sustainable Business Fellow (McDonough School of Business), and a Krogh Honors Scholar, Madhura is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Sigma Nu honor societies. For her work on environmental issues, she was also given the Lena Landegger Community Service Award. Madhura is an avid tennis enthusiast and loves to dance.

Madhura’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is studying the role of civil society groups and nongovernmental organizations in shaping coastal adaptation and urban resilience in Mumbai. In particular, her project is examining the adoption of “natural” infrastructure, sometimes termed “blue-green” infrastructure, such as urban wetlands and water plazas, as an alternative to traditional structures. Through mixed-methods research involving interviews of civil society organizations and analysis of gray literature, she aims to understand public perceptions about such infrastructure, barriers to its adoption, and its potential for supporting coastal resilience and adaptation. The project consolidates Madhura’s interest in inclusive urban development and community-based adaptation policy.

Nandini Krishnamoorthy

Nandini Krishnamoorthy received her BA in community health from Tufts University in May 2026. Having grown up in Mumbai and later moving to the United States for college, she is particularly interested in understanding how social, environmental, and structural factors shape health across different communities and contexts.

During her time at Tufts, she explored the intersections of clinical medicine, public health, and research. Alongside clinical work as a medical assistant, she contributed to research projects spanning global mental health, HIV medication adherence, maternal health equity, and global clinical research ethics. As a Tufts Laidlaw Scholar, Nandini conducted a qualitative research project examining mental health in urban informal settlements in Mumbai, India. She has also held research and internship positions with the Fenway Institute, Boston Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health Equity, the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard, and the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Outside of her academic and professional work, Nandini was a member of a competitive dance team and has been actively involved in South Asian advocacy and affinity spaces. She also loves to read, crochet/knit, and sing.

Nandini’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is a qualitative study of perinatal mental health in Mandala, an informal settlement in Mumbai. Building on the work of Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), a local organization, she is collaborating with community members and “barefoot” researchers to examine how women understand distress, seek support, and navigate care.

Arushi Kende

Arushi Kende is a recent graduate from Cornell University, where she studied Asian studies and pursued research interests in seva, altruism, ecological ethics, and community-based models of care. Her work focuses on how Indian religious communities cultivate self-sustaining cultures of service, especially through practices such as free kitchens, farmer support, elder care, forest schools, and other forms of community-led relief. For her honors assignment, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork across Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, visiting 15 ashrams and seva projects to study how service is practiced as both a spiritual discipline and as a social framework.

Arushi was involved in interfaith and service initiatives at Cornell, where she was president of Hindu YUVA and an interfaith ambassador. Her community education work spans both practical and academic forms of teaching, from leading cooking and local sustainability lessons for community members to supporting elementary students in reading and high school students in essay writing. Her broader interests include sant literature, Indic educational and service traditions, ecological connection, rural sustainability, and the relationship between religion and social change. Through her scholarship and service work, she aims to build mutual exchange between India and the United States around compassionate, resilient, and regenerative forms of altruism.

Building on her earlier exploratory fieldwork, Arushi’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining seva not simply as “selfless service,” but as a cultivated moral and social form. Through sustained ethnographic research among selected religious communities in Maharashtra, she is studying how seva is reproduced through discipline, storytelling, communal labor, devotional practice, institutional life, and personal narrative. The project is delving into how sevaks negotiate self-effacement and agency, how communities sustain non-market obligations without reducing service to debt or patronage, and how recipients interpret care as charity, grace, kinship, reciprocity, or participation in a shared moral world.

Udita Gupta

Dr. Udita Gupta is a clinical associate professor in the Urban Institute for Teacher Education (UITE) at the University of Utah’s College of Education, where she is working in the field of teacher preparation and secondary mathematics education. She began her career as a statistics lecturer in India. She completed her PhD in educational psychology (learning sciences) from the University of Utah. Dr. Gupta brings a cross-cultural perspective shaped by her academic and professional experience in both India and the United States, and is fluent in both Hindi and English. Her research focus is on the cognitive load incurred in STEM learning; reflective practices; global competency development; community-engaged learning; and the integration of artificial intelligence in teacher preparation. She is particularly interested in how culturally responsive pedagogy, global perspectives, and AI-enhanced instructional strategies can strengthen preservice and in-service teacher education. She has published scholarly work and led faculty development initiatives in these areas.

Dr. Gupta’s Fulbright-Nehru project has three major components: strengthening preservice teacher preparation and secondary mathematics teaching methods through direct classroom teaching, workshops, and seminars for both preservice and in-service teachers in India; collaborating with Indian faculty on developing a curriculum that integrates culturally responsive pedagogy, global aspects, and AI into teacher education; and building enduring academic partnerships between Indian and U.S. institutions through sustained mentorship and capacity building in STEM teacher education. Aligned with India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 reforms that emphasize critical thinking over rote learning, the project is working toward strengthening STEM teacher preparation through inquiry-driven, student-centered strategies, and adopting global practices like COIL – Collaborative Online International Learning.

Sarah Matney

Sarah Matney graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2021 with a BA in cognitive neuroscience from the School of Psychological and Brain Sciences. During her undergraduate career, Sarah also began pursuing her birth doula certification and gave a presentation to a sophomore seminar on the importance of doula support for mother–infant attachment and bonding. Over the last three years, Sarah has been running her own business, Sarah Rose Doula & Wellness LLC, which has served over 75 families as a birth, postpartum, and bereavement doula in Seattle and the greater King County area.

Sarah’s Fulbright-Nehru project is researching how the postpartum confinement period in India affects the mental health of the mother. She is studying how birth is viewed and handled in the U.S. and India – in the former, it is viewed as a single event, and the lack of cohesive support is a direct representation of that perspective; in the latter, birth is seen as a process, where time and familial support help the mother cross through and grow into this life change. Sarah hypothesizes that the culture of support given by way of female relatives through the confinement period eases the transition into motherhood. The research is being conducted through both quantitative measures and successive oral histories.

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.

William Elison

Prof. William Elison studied at Williams College and received a PhD in the history of religions from the University of Chicago. He teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He specializes in Hinduism and related traditions as observed in India in the present day, mostly in vernacular languages, mostly among non-elite people.

As an urban ethnographer, he is committed to an ongoing program of research in the streets and poor neighborhoods of Mumbai. The first book-length product of this research, The Neighborhood of Gods, came out in 2018 from the University of Chicago Press. It examines how slum residents and other marginalized groups use religious images to mark and settle urban space. One of its main arguments is that sacred space is created according to a visual and somatic praxis observed across religious traditions. At the same time, it recasts, in a modern context, a question central to the history of Hindu thought: If the divine is manifest in the phenomenal world, then where and in what form do we recognize God? And with what sort of insight or authority?

Related research interests have included Adivasi (“tribal” or ST) communities; Indian slum neighborhoods and their village roots; and the mediation of darshan, or visual worship, by the movies and other technologies. From his student days, Prof. Elison has looked to Hindi popular cinema— “Bollywood”— for a window into modern Indian culture. His book on the landmark 1977 film Amar Akbar Anthony, coauthored with Christian Novetzke and Andy Rotman, was released in 2015 by Harvard University Press.

He has recently become interested in exploring the literary possibilities of ethnographic writing. His Fulbright-Nehru project this year intends to advance the next step in his fieldwork inquiry into religious life in Mumbai slum colonies.

A multisite ethnography of religious life in Mumbai slum communities. By “slum” Prof. Elison means housing consisting of unauthorized structures. Over half Mumbai’s population lives in such neighborhoods. By “religion” he means cults of local, territorial gods and divinized figures. This is a stratum of practice long associated with “village Hinduism” that Prof. Elison will demonstrate is a) observed in urban India; and b) not confined to Hindus. He will study gods as brokers of blessings and resources that flow into communities: vitality, cash, respect. Over a total of six months, Prof. Elison seeks to pursue simultaneous inquiries in three or more neighborhoods. His method is qualitative participant observation.

Annika Agarwal

Annika Agarwal graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a major in anthropology in May 2023. While in school, she was the campus chairperson of Global Brigades where she organized menstrual products for communities in Honduras. She also founded Screen to Street, an organization that conducts home visits and educational programs for Latina women in their prenatal and postpartum periods. Besides, she worked as a birth doula at Magee-Womens Hospital, Pittsburgh, where she helped countless mothers during their birthing experience. One of her most valuable undergraduate experiences was developing her research skills and repertoire through Dr. Sara Baumann’s lab in Pittsburgh. During that time, she spent a summer in Mumbai, working with orphan girls to understand institutionalized menstrual practices, attitudes, and knowledge production. She has also worked on projects related to Collaborative Filmmaking, a participatory arts-based method, to understand the postpartum experiences of women in Pittsburgh. Annika will build on these experiences and skills through her Fulbright year. Ultimately, she hopes to attend medical school and continue her work on women’s health research globally.

Due to insufficient sanitary services, slum women in Dharavi, Mumbai, face a predicament. While they use dilapidated community toilets that make menstruation a communal issue, taboos perpetuate a clandestine culture. Of the sparse research that has been done on menstrual disposal, men and elders stand excluded. Therefore, this Fulbright study asks: “What are the attitudes, practices, and knowledge around menstrual disposal among men and women of different ages in Dharavi?” For her research, Annika is using Collaborative Filmmaking to co-create films on menstrual disposal with the residents. This study will contribute to the knowledge on differential bodily autonomy based on gender, a prominent issue in both the U.S. and India.

Isha Padhye

Isha Padhye has a BA in public policy from the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. At UNC, she served in various roles in Student Government. Her senior honors thesis was on misinformation. Most recently, she worked as a research associate at the University of Chicago, helping in projects focused on U.S. healthcare policy. Isha was also a U.S. Global Health Corps Fellow from June 2023–May 2024. Her research interests lie in universal healthcare coverage, women’s health, and youth empowerment.

Isha’s Fulbright-Nehru study, based in Mumbai, is evaluating the impact of community health workers, known as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs), on menstrual education among the youth in India. It is examining how ASHAs are serving as a resource to menstruating girls and how they are educating these girls. For this, Isha is conducting in-depth interviews with girls between the ages of 13–18 and with ASHA focus groups. This research hopes to make a significant contribution to the growing field of menstrual health management.

Shaili Gandhi

Shaili Gandhi is passionate about improving the health and well-being of underserved populations, with a particular commitment to people who use drugs, people living with mental illness, and immigrant communities. Shaili received her undergraduate degree from New York University in 2020 and completed her master’s in public health with a concentration in community health from the City University of New York in 2022. While completing her MPH, she worked for the Viral Hepatitis Program at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Health where she supported Hepatitis B and C care navigation programs. During this time, she helped facilitate a space for peer and patient navigators to stay abreast of relevant policy changes, created meaningful referral relationships, and troubleshot cases. Moreover, upon noticing a dearth of resources tailored to the South Asian community in New York, she and her colleagues worked together to develop the South Asian Hepatitis Initiative (SAHI). After her master’s, Shali joined the New York University Health x Housing Lab as a research coordinator. There, she developed her qualitative research skills by conducting an evaluation of a telephone-based nurse triage service in NYC homeless shelters. She is presently using community-engaging research methods to better understand the pathways to housing for older homeless adults. Throughout her academic and professional career, Shaili has been interested in how activism and community organizing can be used to build communities of care from the ground up.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Shaili is exploring the intersecting objectives of feminism, labor activism, and health activism through a case study of India’s Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA). SEWA implements a health service delivery model that simultaneously serves the community and promotes economic independence for their health workers by training grassroots organizers to provide health services within their own villages. Shaili is using qualitative methods to understand how SEWA has traversed the boundary between trade union and public health without sacrificing the core components of either. Her research aims to shed light on how to build sustainable, community-led solutions to promote health security for all.