India Fellows Years: Indian Fellows 2026-2027

Hasan Raja Naqvi

Dr. Hasan Raja Naqvi is an Assistant Professor of geography at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), New Delhi. He earned his PhD on “Watershed Management for Soil Conservation: A Case of Nun Nadi Watershed” in 2013 from the Department of Geography at JMI. He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in geography from Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. His academic background comprises physical geography, environmental systems, and geospatial analysis.

Dr. Naqvi’s research interests include climate resilience, natural hazards, watershed management, air pollution, and geospatial technologies. He has published more than 50 research articles in national and international journals and presented his work in the United States, China, Taiwan, and Ethiopia. He has also completed an Indo-Taiwan collaborative project funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and received the Scientific High-Level Visiting Fellowship for France in 2024.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Naqvi is working on an interdisciplinary project which applies advanced GeoAI and climate analytics to improve flood-risk assessment, resilience planning, and sustainable watershed management in vulnerable regions of India and the United States.

Gulfishan Khan

Prof. Gulfishan Khan is a specialist in medieval Indian history. Till June 2024, she was professor and chairperson of the Department of History at Aligarh Muslim University (India). Her most recent publication is a paper Representations of the Palace and Cityscape (co-authored with W. M. Thackston) in the annual Muqarnas (Brill: 2024). Her major academic contributions are the two books Indian Muslim Perceptions (Oxford University Press, 1998) and Indo-Persian Elite (New Delhi: Manohar, 2025).

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Gulfishan Khan would be studying some important aspects of architectural refashioning of the dynamic capital (darul khilafa) Agra, a vibrant medieval urban settlement during the first half of the Seventeenth Century. In this significant period the Mughal court at Agra was the nucleus of a splendid flowering of art and artistic culture, based on blending of Indian and Perso-Islamic traditions under the liberal court-patronage of emperor Shah Jahan. The architectural contribution of imperial women in the aestheticization of the urban landscape of the historic capital and its environs would be highlighted.

Govind

Prof. Govind joined CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, as Scientist C in 2004 and was promoted to Scientist G in 2022. Since 2019, he has also served as a Professor at the Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research. His research has been recognised with several honours, including the Distinguished Lectureship Award and Medal from the Materials Research Society of India (MRSI), the IETE-CEOT Award, the NASI-Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award, and the DST-Young Scientist Award.

Prof. Govind is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, the Electron Microscopy Society of India, and an Associate Fellow of the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials. He received the BOYSCAST Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to serve as a visiting scientist at Rutgers University, USA, and the Yusuf Hamid International Exchange Fellowship from the Royal Society, UK, to serve as a visiting scientist at Cambridge University, UK. Prof. Govind has published over 430 research articles in international journals, as well as several books, book chapters, and patents.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Govind is developing a multisensory, integrated neuromorphic platform that emulates brain-inspired artificial neural networks for neuromorphic computing and environmental information processing. His work focuses on designing neuro-mimetic devices and memtransistors using 2D materials, and includes monolithic integration, stacking, and software architecture to deliver innovative tools for scientific and industrial applications.

Bijoy Chand Chatterjee

Dr. Bijoy Chand Chatterjee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi, and an Adjunct Faculty member at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIITD), India. Prior to joining SAU, he held positions at IIIT Delhi, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway, and The University of Electro-Communications, Japan, and has served as a Visiting Researcher at Kyoto University on multiple occasions.
Dr. Chatterjee has authored/co-authored over 150 research papers in reputed journals and conferences, including IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, Journal of Lightwave Technology, and IEEE INFOCOM, and has co-authored two books published by Springer and CRC Press. He has led several national and international R&D projects and served on the technical program committees of major conferences, including IEEE ANTS, HPSR, ICC, NOMS, and GLOBECOM. His research focuses on optical networks, routing, and resource optimization. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a Fellow of IETE, and Vice-Chair of the IEEE Communications Society Delhi Chapter.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Chatterjee is aiming to develop next-generation optical networking frameworks using machine learning for large-scale deployment in India and the USA. His work emphasizes advanced resource allocation and intelligent network design, aligning well with ongoing efforts and offering strong potential for impactful collaboration in future communication systems.

Bidyananda Maibam

Prof. Bidyananda Maibam has a PhD from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is a Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences, Manipur University. He was a recipient of the BOYSCAST Fellowship sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India to conduct collaborative research at the University of Mainz, Germany. He applies elemental and isotopic compositions of rocks and zircons (U-Pb, Lu-Hf, and O) to study the formation and evolution of Archean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic rocks in India.
As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Maibam is deciphering which geodynamic processes predominated in the formation of the earliest continental crust. Due to the limited extent of the early rock record, it remains unclear whether plate tectonics was operative throughout Earth’s history or if there were major changes in the dominant mechanisms of continental crust formation over time. He is characterizing the geochemistry of Paleo-Mesoarchean zircons of the Singhbhum craton to provide constraints for a tectonic evolutionary model for this region, with broad-scale implications for how continents were formed on early Earth.

Barani Kanth Devarajan

Prof. Barani Kanth Devarajan is a Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at Pondicherry University, India, where he has been a founding faculty member since 2007. A recipient of the UGC Raman Postdoctoral Fellowship at Kent State University, USA, his expertise centers on cross-cultural quantitative research methods, psychometrics, youth mental health, and family relationships. He has led and collaborated on several international research projects involving scholars from the United States and Europe, with publications in leading peer-reviewed journals.

In addition to his academic contributions, Prof. Devarajan coordinates student mental health and counseling initiatives and professional training programs promoting accessible and culturally sensitive psychological support systems in higher education. He received the Certificate of Merit for Teaching from Pondicherry University for seven academic years.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Devarajan is examining the cultural and psychological factors influencing student mental health across India and the United States, as well as the structure, challenges, and best practices of campus mental health services. The project aims to support the development of culturally sensitive and effective campus mental health systems in India.

Arumugam Kumaresan

Dr. Arumugam Kumaresan is an ICAR National Fellow and Principal Scientist at the ICAR-National Dairy Research Institute, Southern Regional Station, Bengaluru, India. With more than two decades’ experience in animal reproduction research, he has established himself as a key scientist in the fields of semen biology, male fertility and reproductive biotechnology. He earned his PhD in veterinary gynecology and obstetrics from the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, India. He completed postdoctoral training at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Sweden, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA, and the University of Guelph, Canada.

Dr. Kumaresan has led over 30 nationally and internationally funded research projects. His pioneering work has advanced understanding of sperm biology and fertility. Notably, he identified key sperm biomarkers associated with bull fertility and developed a diagnostic kit for fertility prediction. He has authored over 310 peer-reviewed publications and has mentored more than 40 postgraduate and doctoral students. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the National Academy of Dairy Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of several international journals. His scientific contributions have earned global recognition through inclusion in Stanford University and Elsevier/Stanford’s World’s Top 2% Scientists from 2021 to 2025.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Kumaresan is advancing research on biomarker-based sperm phenotyping, next-generation image-based flow cytometry, and genome-to-phenome approaches to identify genetic determinants of male fertility. His work aims to develop a simple, non-invasive diagnostic platform for infertility assessment.

Aleena Manoharan

Dr. Aleena Manoharan is Associate Professor at the Department of English, CMS College Kottayam, Kerala, where she teaches courses on literary theory, literary criticism, American and European literatures. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Madras and specializes in ecocriticism, with particular focus on the concept of bioregion as an ecocritical tool to analyze literary texts. She is the author of the book Bioregion and Indigeneity in Literary Imagination (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2023) and has significant academic publications to her credit. She has delivered several keynote lectures and plenary talks on ecocriticism for seminars and has presented papers at national and international conferences, both in India and abroad.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Manoharan is continuing to focus on bioregional studies in the wake of present environmental and ecological crises. Her project focuses on understanding the intersections between the land-based theories, bioregion and tinai, and their implications in ecocritical pedagogy and research. Dr. Manoharan will also examine the pedagogical strategies required to effectively facilitate teaching and research practices based on these theories, particularly their application to the study of indigenous literatures.

Reetu Sogani

Dr. Reetu Sogani is a development practitioner, researcher, and academician working on the protection, strengthening and enhancement of cultural and biological diversity, its integration to address food and nutrition security and build climate resilience in the Himalayas as well as in other parts of India, for over 27 years. She is a PhD in Environmental Management from R.A. Podar Institute of Management, Jaipur.

Dr. Sogani has conceptualized, implemented, and coordinated several projects at the grassroots and evaluated several developmental projects funded by reputed donor agencies such as IFAD, IRMA, and PAC on sustainable agriculture, food and nutrition security, and climate resilience. Since 2012, she has been Program Director, Deodar Himalaya Project on Eco-health, Chintan International Trust (India), Uttarakhand. She is also a resource person for faculty in institutions across the country. She has served in an advisory capacity with reputed institutions such as Afromontane Research Unit, the University of the Free State, IDS, Sussex. She has been an Action Researcher in Uttarakhand with the University of East Anglia, UK. She has authored several research papers and chapters in reputed publications. She has delivered talks on several national and international forums in Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa.

As a Fulbright Scholar-In-Residence, Dr. Sogani will be teaching classes on environmental ethics, international conservation strategies and food policy and politics at The Clark Family School of Environment and Sustainability, Western Colorado University. She will also be engaged in enhancing and expanding existing international programming and assist in integrating international dimensions within existing course offerings.

Nagamani Gnaneswaran

Dr. G. Nagamani is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at The Gandhigram Rural Institute. She specializes in passivity analysis, neural networks, control theory and fractional calculus. She earned her PhD in mathematics from the same institution for her highly commended thesis on passivity analysis of neural networks with time-varying delays. Her research focuses on nonlinear dynamical systems, fuzzy systems, delayed neural networks and fractional-order models.

Dr. Nagamani has served in academic and research positions for over two decades, including DST-funded Junior and Senior Research Fellowships, and guides doctoral research. Eight PhD scholars have graduated, and she is currently guiding five. Her contributions include numerous publications, international collaborations, editorial activities, and reviewer roles for various journals published by Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, and IEEE (https://scholar.google.com/GN).

Dr. Nagamani has completed funded research projects supported by the University Grants Commission, National Board for Higher Mathematics, and Science and Engineering Research Board. Her distinctions include the Tamil Nadu Young Women Scientist Award, the Overseas Research Professor Fellowship at Kunsan National University, South Korea, and the Best Researcher Award 2024 from The Gandhigram Rural Institute. She has organized several international conferences and workshops in mathematical modelling, machine learning, quantum computing, applied mathematics and has delivered more than 50 invited lectures at national and international academic forums.

As a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence, Dr. Nagamani will be teaching a course on advanced computational intelligence and engaging with the broader academic community in research-oriented projects on computational intelligence.