India Fellows Years: Indian Fellows 2022-2023

Geetha Manivasagam

As a woman scientist in STEM, Dr. Geetha Manivasagam started her research in her mid-30s and worked in various interdisciplinary areas. She completed her Master’s of Science and MPhil in crystallography and biophysics, but during the Ph.D. work, she shifted her focus towards biomaterial engineering for improving the quality of life in patients receiving implants.

She is currently the Director of Center for Biomaterials, Cellular and Molecular Theranostics (CBCMT), an interdisciplinary research facility to mobilize and materialize translational research. Considering her contributions in the field of Biomaterials, she was invited to be a part of a national initiative for preparing a road map for bioimplants in coordination with IIT ,DMRL, IISC, and Tata Health Care. Recently, she was invited by Springer Nature to be a member of the editorial team of the journal Invitro Model. She had been recognised as No. 1 scientist in Materials Science by MHRD from 2009-2019 and listed in the Top 2 % of scientists in the country in Materials Science as per the analysis performed by Stanford University.

Dr. Manivasagam’s Fulbirght-Nehru Fellowship work comprises developing a smart multimodal polymer-based bone-implant fortified with growth factors and anti-microbial agents for the controlled release of compounds as the conventional treatment modalities for treating bone infection are getting saturated with diminishing efficacy. This work is a novel approach with practical translational potential that can curb bone bacterial infection which is a global threat and aid rapid regeneration of bone.

Basavaprabhu L. Patil

Dr. Basavaprabhu L. Patil is a Principal Scientist (Plant Biotechnology) at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR), Bengaluru. He did Bachelor’s of Science and Master’s of Science in Agriculture from UAS-Dharwad and Ph.D. (2001-2005) from University of Delhi. During Ph.D. he received a DAAD scholarship to work at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. He did his postdoctoral research (2006-2010) in Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis, USA and contributed to the development of Virus Resistant Cassava for Africa. Briefly he worked as Scientist-D, in the DBT’s National Agri-Food Biotechnology Institute, Mohali and then he relocated to University of Basel, Switzerland. In 2012, he joined as a Senior Scientist in ICAR-National Institute for Plant Biotechnology, New Delhi. In 2018, he relocated to ICAR-IIHR, Bengaluru and continues to work in the area of Plant Virology. During his stint in ICAR, he has been PI for multiple projects funded by DBT, BIRAC, BCIL and ICAR. He has published extensively and is a recognized editor for International Journals, and reviewer for Grant Applications. He has served as an external expert to assess the scientists from CSIR and ICAR. He was honored with the IVS Fellow Award by the Indian Virological Society in 2014 and received EU’s Erasmus Mundus scholarship in 2016. Recently, he was conferred with Prof. B.M. Johri memorial Award, by the Society for Plant Research (India).

During his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Patil will develop and validate novel Genome Editing Tools for Virus Diagnostics, Functional Genomics and Virus Control.

Sushanta Kumar Chatterjee

Presently Chief (Regulatory Affairs) with Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), Dr. Sushanta Kumar Chatterjee has a long experience in dealing with power sector reforms, especially, Regulatory Reforms since its inception in 1998.

He has been a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, USA, and holds a Ph.D. in Management, MBA in Finance and Master’s in Economics.

He has co-authored “The Electricity Sector in India: Policy and Regulation” (Oxford University Press, 2012); authored “S.K. Chatterjee’s Commentary on the Electricity Laws of India” (Delhi Law House, 2006); published papers on renewable energy policy (World Bank 2013; NREL 2016; Energy Policy 2021); completed research as Principal Investigator (Topic: “Meeting the Renewable Revolution: A Roadmap for Electricity Market Design in India”) at International Growth Centre, London School of Economics, UK (2017); co-authored “Renewable Energy in India: Economics and Market Dynamics” (Sage Publishing, India, 2021).

Public policy has been his passion in professional and academic life. He has demonstrated a leadership role in conceiving, designing, and implementing policy and regulation, especially on renewable and electricity market design in India. He has played a pioneering role in introducing the Electricity Act, 2003; Renewable Energy Certificate mechanism; Security Constrained Economic Dispatch; Real Time Market; market based Ancillary Services.

He has been/is a part of several Committees constituted by Ministry of Power, CERC, Forum of Regulators, and South Asia Forum for Infrastructure Regulation. He is a regular guest faculty in several institutions in India/abroad. Dr. Chatterjee has been nominated as the first President of Indian Association of Energy Economics.

Shantanu Kumar Behera

Dr. Shantanu Behera is currently an Associate Professor of Ceramic Engg. At NIT Rourkela. He holds a bachelor’s degree from NIT Rourkela and a Doctorate in Materials Science and Engineering from Lehigh University, Bethlehem, USA. He worked on analysing the atomic structural features of dopant segregated grain boundaries in alumina using transmission electron microscopy at Lehigh and synchrotron x-rays at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (NY, USA). Following his doctorate, he worked at the University of Colorado Boulder (USA) on various aspects of Polymer Derived Ceramics before relocating to India. Dr. Behera’s research interests over the last decade at NIT Rourkela includes development of nanostructures and hybrids from preceramic polymers with potential applications in batteries, supercapacitors, and in high temperature resistant bulk materials and coatings.

Dr. Behera was an invitee in the Indo-German Frontiers of Engineering Symposium following which he was a Visiting Scientist at the Forschungszentrum Julich, Germany. He reviews scientific literature for more than 30 journals and is an outstanding reviewer for a few. He speaks regularly in his mother tongue (odia) in All India Radio on popular and informative scientific topics.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship, Dr. Behera aims to fabricate novel Si-C hybrids using preceramic polymers for application as efficient anodes for Li ion batteries. With his expertise in preceramic polymer processing, microstructural characterization, and the resources at CU Boulder, he plans to develop a series of Si-C nanostructures, test their electrochemical properties to gain insights on the processing, microstructure, and performance relationship in these materials.

Kuljeet Kaur Marhas

Dr. Kuljeet Kaur Marhas is a Professor in Planetary Science Division at Physical Research Laboratory. She has been working in three sub divisions of planetary sciences (A) early evolution of Solar system (analyzing early forming solids to understand origin and evolution of Solar System), (B) presolar grains and nucleosynthesis (analyzing presolar/circumstellar grains to understand stellar evolution), (C) differentiated objects (other Solar system bodies like Moon, Mars via meteorites). Dr. Marhas has also been involved in analyzing samples from sample return missions by NASA, JAXA to understand several aspects of solar system formation. Several new scientific (theoretical and experimental) and technical projects have been initiated by her, with her recent/new interest in hydrothermal alterations and volatile transport in/at asteroidal regions.

Dr. Marhas earned her Ph.D. from Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), India, in 2001. With her new experiences achieved during her postdoctoral period at Max Planck Institute for chemistry, Mainz (2002-2005) and Washington University, St. Louis (2005-2007) she brought expertise in small grain analyses and set up her laboratory in Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad.

The grand objective of the Dr. Marhas’s Fulbright-Nehru project is to understand nucleosynthesis and temporal evolution of physico-cosmochemical conditions in novae by isotopic studies of sulphur and other elements in presolar nova grains found in meteorites. Specifically, the proposal approach is to analyze a few tens of potential presolar novae grains using C and N isotopic measurements, and subsequently measure their S isotopes to compare them with the latest nova and SN models to unequivocally establish their genealogy and provenance.

Priyanka Jamwal

Dr. Priyanka Jamwal is currently working as a Fellow in the Centre for Environment and Development, ATREE, Bengaluru. She completed her B. Tech in Civil Engineering from NIT Hamirpur (1997–2001) and Masters in Environmental Engineering from Punjab Technical University, Chandigarh (2001-2003) with several distinctions and her doctoral degree in Environmental Engineering and Management from IIT Delhi (2003–2008). She broadly works in water resource management with a focus on water quality. Her work focuses on identifying contaminant sources in surface water bodies, modelling the fate and transport of contaminants in urban hydrological systems and assessing the risk to human health due to exposure to contaminants. Her empirical work has focused on quantifying microbial load from point and non-point sources in urbanising watersheds. Her work on the fate of trace metals and nutrients in urban hydrological systems has identified gaps in India’s water quality regulatory frameworks.

She has made significant contributions in the field of environmental pollution and human health risk assessment. Her work also focuses on understanding the groundwater sanitation nexus in the peri-urban spaces that lack piped water supply and centralised sanitation infrastructures. She applies interdisciplinary approaches to understand the factors that drive humans to interact with the environment in a certain way that impacts water resources. She is also interested in developing design principles for the deployment and scaling of Nature-based solutions (NBS) to address water pollution issues in urban and rural areas.

Tarun Jain

Dr. Tarun Jain is an Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Previously, on the faculty at the Indian School of Business, he earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Virginia. His research focuses on understanding causes and consequences of human capital formation (for instance, with education and health), especially in the context of fast-growing developing countries. Gender is a topic of special research interest given that women face persistent barriers in economic advancement. His research has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Growth Centre, and the International Initiative for Impact Evaluation, published in peer-reviewed journals such as the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Public Economics, and featured in the New York Times, The Economist, the Times of India and Indian Express. He has written for media outlets such as the Economic Times, New Indian Express, Ideas for India, The Hindu and Mint, and been a speaker for TEDx IIM Ahmedabad.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship, Dr. Jain will analyze the impact of a gender attitude change curriculum taught in government schools on the life outcomes of young adults. Specifically, he will investigate the long-term impact of the program on gender-related attitudes during adulthood, female participants’ higher education, labor force participation and age of marriage, and marital choices made by married male participants, such as their wives’ education and employment status, and the gender division of domestic work.

Gowramma Ittara Poovaiah

Dr. Gowramma Poovaiah Ittira is a Professor at the Regional Institute of Education, Bhubaneswar, NCERT. She teaches right from the grass root level of Bachelors of Integrated Teacher Education Programme and extends her guidance to her doctoral candidates, thus covering a wide range of students from sectoral socio-lingual communities of varied age groups. She reaches up to approximately 900 to 1000 student teachers per year and mentors about a quarter of these students in their internships while they teach in varied, diverse locations among the four states in the eastern region of India. Her current role helps in facilitating and informing research, including culturally relevant practices from varied parts of India and disseminating the results to reach schools all around India.

Dr. Ittira’s Fulbright-Nehru project aims to examine how and in what ways early literacy is affected by socio cultural practices. This project will document sociocultural practices adopted in early childhood and study their influence on literacy readiness. Furthermore, it will help inform literacy initiatives in local language and English, in India, highlighting what practices in early childhood education are beneficial. The project initiated from her home institute, Regional Institute of Education (RIE) Bhubaneswar, where she was exposed to the diverse languages of eastern India and its cultural diversity. She found similarities in practices in these practices with Kodava, her homeland. Thus, the research will directly contribute to early literacy development while incorporating the rich sociocultural practices. It will have a wide application in multilingual communities around India to foster literacy and early language acquisition while celebrating the vast cultural and linguistic diversity. Her current role will facilitate research in culturally relevant curriculum construction and practices along with possible forms of alternative education from varied parts of India and disseminating the results to reach schools all around India.

Amalendu Ghosh

Dr. Amalendu Ghosh is currently working as a Scientist in Advanced Centre for Plant Virology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi. He completed his postgraduate (2005-2007) and doctoral degree (2007-2010) in Agricultural Entomology from Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Kalyani, West Bengal with several distinctions. He has been a faculty member at IARI, New Delhi for the past seven years. His main research interest lies in understanding the relationships of insect vectors and plant viruses and developing novel molecules aiming to interrupt the inter-relationships and restrict the spread of diseases. Dr. Ghosh has demonstrated the inhibition of virus transmission by thrips and whitefly using double-stranded RNA and antisense oligos.

Dr. Ghosh has been the recipient of Endeavour Research Fellowship (Australian Government), four Young Scientist Awards, and nine competitive research grants.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellowship, he aims to carry out targeted gene editing and determine the effects on development, reproduction, embryogenesis, and vector competence of thrips. With his expertise in insect science combined with plant virology, he aims to learn and conduct research with a multidisciplinary approach at the Department of Plant Pathology, Washington State University, Pullman. He wishes to apply the CRISPR/Cas9 system in Thrips palmi (Thysanoptera, Thripidae) to induce sterility thereby reducing the transmission of tospoviruses. This approach will help to develop an eco-friendly tactic that is adaptable to changing climate to manage thrips as a pest and restrict the spread of tospoviruses.

Anu Unny

Dr. Anu Unny is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Kerala. She is also the Hon. Director of UGC-Nehru Studies Centre, University of Kerala. Before joining the University of Kerala, she worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Delhi. She has served as a Member of the Board of Studies in Kerala and Kannur Universities.

Dr. Unny completed her M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. from the School of International Studies (SIS), Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. Along with her teaching responsibilities, she acts as a research guide for the Ph.D. Programme in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Kerala. She is a recipient of the International Studies Association (ISA) grant to visit the US in 2017. She has many research papers to her credit in national and international journals. She has visited many countries, including the US, to present her research outcomes in conferences. She is an active participant in media discussions on international issues and a resource person for UGC Orientation and Refresher Programmes.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, Dr. Unny will teach a course on the ‘Politics of Climate Change’ for students at the University of Washington. She will also engage in research at the University of Washington to understand the nuances of US domestic politics on climate change and to explore the challenges and possibilities in strengthening India-US climate cooperation. Apart from climate politics, Dr. Unny’s research interests lie in gender, human rights and Indian politics.