Indian Fellows 2022-2023 Archives - Page 3 of 16

Priya Gagansingh Thakur

Ms. Priya Thakur is a Ph.D. research scholar at CSIR-Institute of Genomics and integrative Biology, New Delhi, working in the field of disease modelling and CRISPR-cas genome editing. She is working towards modelling Gaucher Disease- the most common lysosomal storage disorder. It is caused due to genetic mutations in the GBA gene and is also the most common genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s Disease. She is interested in understanding the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease using patient derived induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells can be differentiated into disease affected cell types and can recapitulate the disease. Through the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship, she will work with field experts to overcome her limitations in achieving her research objectives.

Prior to joining IGIB, she worked as a project junior research fellow, to understand the role of histone proteins in breast cancer, under Dr. Sanjay Gupta at the Tata Memorial Centre-Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer(TMC-ACTREC), Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. She received her master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology from M.S University, Baroda, Gujarat, and her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Mumbai University, Maharashtra. Apart from working in the lab, she enjoys watching movies, listening to music, and participating in adventure sports.

Arya Alvernas

Mr. Rishiraj Adhikary is a Ph.D. student at the Computer Science Department, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat. His research interest is in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing and sensor-enabled embedded systems that can impact healthcare delivery or pave the way towards making healthcare more accessible. His current research focuses on retrofitting consumer-grade masks with sensors to detect lung health. His prior work has also studied the perception of people around air pollution to aid in risk communication.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, he will study how contexts like human activity can be leveraged to implement opportunistic sensing techniques in smart masks. Successful research on context sensing will pave the way to preserve privacy and reduce the energy consumption of a smart face mask.

Mr. Adhikary received his B.Tech. (Electronics and Communication Engineering) from Gauhati University, Assam, where his capstone project was recognised as the best project. He has successfully conducted events targeting school children in the past where he has demonstrated prototyping tools to help students understand the basics of electronics. He also takes a keen interest in teaching undergraduate and school students.

Rishiraj Adhikary

Kanchan K. Malik

Dr. Kanchan K. Malik is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Hyderabad, India, where she also served as Head from 2017-20. She has been a Faculty Fellow with UNESCO Chair on Community Media since 2011 and Editor of the e-newsletter, CR News. With a dual Master’s in Economics and Mass Communication, Dr. Malik worked as a journalist with The Economic Times, New Delhi, before kindling her career in academics. Dr. Malik’s teaching and research are in the areas of community media, women in community communications, journalism studies, and media ethics. She has worked with national and international research projects and published papers on media interventions by non-governmental organizations for empowerment at the grassroots level.

Dr. Malik co-authored with Prof. Vinod Pavarala the much-cited book ‘Other Voices: The Struggle for Community Radio in India’ (Sage: 2007). Her co-edited book is ‘Community Radio in South Asia: Reclaiming the Airwaves’ (Routledge: 2020). She recently worked on the manual ‘Strengthening Gender Sensitive Practices and Programming in Community Radio’ (UNESCO, 2021).

Dr. Malik’s Fulbright-Nehru teaching component will comprise thematic seminars focusing on how community media in South Asia have enabled women to create gender spaces, challenge women’s marginalization in access to media and help mainstream gender in social change discourses. Her research project will seek to develop a framework for interpreting the empowerment question through the culturally rooted lived realities of women engaged in community communication and untangling how women negotiate with and navigate the deep-rooted issues affecting gender equality.

Aditya Vijaykumar

Mr. Aditya Vijaykumar is a Ph.D. candidate in the Astrophysical Relativity group at ICTS-TIFR in Bengaluru, working on various aspects of physics, astrophysics, cosmology with gravitational waves. Before joining ICTS-TIFR, he was an undergraduate student at BITS-Pilani, where he received a dual degree in Physics and Mechanical Engineering in 2018.

As a Fulbright-Nehru fellow, Vijaykumar plans to work on understanding gravitational-wave observations from the perspective of cosmological large-scale structure. The advantage of this approach is two-fold: one can confirm existing cosmological inferences from other probes, and independently understand formation environments and mechanisms of the detected gravitational-wave events.

Mr. Vijaykumar is also active in the Bengaluru theatre circuit, as a part of the theatre company StageCraft. Most recently, he was the co-producer of ZOOMED IN!, an online theatre production featuring actors situated across two time zones. He also is an ardent lover of films and runs a film-analysis podcast called Cut to Scene! with a friend.

Amal Vijay

Mr. Amal Vijay is pursuing his Ph.D. from the Computational Chemistry and Biophysics group, Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. His current area of research focuses on studying the mechanism of various biomolecular recognition processes, specifically protein-drug and protein-protein interactions and secondary interactions in nucleotides using advanced molecular dynamics simulation techniques.

He completed his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the Loyola College, Chennai, India, and his master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad. He is a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) awarded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). He is honored by the Rashtrapati Scout award, an award presented by the President of India for his achievement in scouting.

As a Fulbright-Nehru fellow, Vijay is interested in understanding the scope of “RNA breathing” in RNA – protein recognition process using molecular dynamics simulation methods aided by enhanced sampling techniques in computational chemistry. The proposed study project can provide a significant impact on the role of RNA-based drug design for the cure of various diseases.

Vaishali Thakkur

Ms. Vaishali Thakkur is a Ph.D. scholar at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), Uttar Pradesh. Her research focuses on modelling enzymatic reactions using density functional based on the quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) technique. As a part of her doctoral thesis, she works with the QM/MM method, along with various enhanced sampling techniques, to study the underlying mechanism for antibiotic resistance. She is also interested in identifying and addressing the bottleneck in these calculations to make them more efficient. Apart from science, she enjoys spending her time learning new languages and playing with her color palette.

Prior to joining IITK as a research scholar, she completed her bachelor’s and master’s in Chemistry from Delhi University and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD), respectively. She has been a recipient of the merit cum means scholarship for her performance at IITD. She also has a year-long experience of working as an online educator and content reviewer at Chegg India Pvt. Ltd.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, she will work with experts to understand and implement a new electrostatic embedding scheme in the existing QM/MM framework. The aim is to develop a model that is accurate and affordable at the same time. The introduction of such a method would be beneficial for people modelling reactions in complex biological systems, where the computation of these electrostatic interactions proves to be time consuming.

Makepeace Sitlhou

Makepeace Sitlhou is an independent journalist, who has been working in the media and communications field for over a decade in India. Makepeace has been covering India’s Northeast for several leading news publications like Vox, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Nikkei Asia, The British Medical Journal, Vogue Business, Middle East Eye, Foreign Policy, The Juggernaut, Asia Times, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Fair Observer, Popula, BBC, Vice World News, Sojourners, and TRT World.

Her freelance work has been widely recognized by awards in national and international forums. More recently, she was jointly awarded the prestigious Red Ink Award by the Mumbai Press Club in the Lifestyle category for a story she wrote for CNN International.

In 2017, she received the UNFPA sponsored Laadli Media award for gender sensitivity for her coverage of tribal women’s protest in Manipur for The Ladies Finger. Her story on Black rice in Manipur published in Popula won the South Asian Journalism Association Award in the Business category in 2019. In 2020, she received the National Media Award for her coverage of coal mining in Meghalaya post the National Green Tribunal ban.

Her work has been supported by organizations like Google News Initiative, Center for Financial Accountability, National Foundation for India, Zubaan Books in collaboration with Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Humsafar Trust, and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. Makepeace completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Psychology from the University of Delhi. She has previously worked with leading civil society organizations like Amnesty International and Breakthrough India and as a staff writer with The Alternative (Sattva Media) and The Print.

As a Humphrey fellow, she wishes to learn in-depth about the US immigration laws and policy, and their implementation along the US-Mexico border. She’d like to study the parallels between the Indian and American immigration systems from the angles of national security, human rights, bureaucracy and citizen-centric politics.

Ajeetha Begum Sulthan

Ajeetha is an IPS Officer, 2008 Batch, born into the Kerala Cadre. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce and Business Management and a Master’s degree in Political Science with a specialization in Gandhian studies. While training at the National Police Academy, she was adjudged the Best Lady Athlete and the Best Lady Outdoor Probationer of the batch.

She has worked as the Assistant Superintendent of Police Reasi and Additional Superintendent of Police Ramban in Jammu and Kashmir following which she was transferred to Kerala. In Kerala, she worked as the Superintendent of Police of Internal Security Investigation Team, CBCID, District Police Chief (Thrissur rural), Deputy Commissioner of Police (Trivandrum City), District Police Chief (Wayanad), Principal of Police Training College, District Police Chief (Kollam rural) and District Police Chief and Commissioner of Police (Kollam city). She is currently working as the Assistant Director in SVP National Police Academy. She has represented India at the UNODC conference in Vienna, Austria ( 2019) and made a presentation on Gender mainstreaming in the police.

The officer has been awarded the Kalinga Fellowship in recognition of her work in combating gender-based violence and the trafficking of women and children. She is a triathlete and has also stood first in Full marathon Open category Women’s – Hyderabad Airtel Marathon 2021.

As a Humphrey Fellow, she wishes to learn more about practical strategies to address the issue of prevention of crimes against children and also will improve institutional response to child victims of sexual assault by studying international best practices, policy frameworks, initiatives carried out by various public authorities, and develop a roadmap which includes multi-agency coordination to tackle this problem.