India Fellows Years: Indian Fellows 2026-2027

Ruchika Rai

Dr. Ruchika Rai is an Assistant Professor and Senior Fellow who co-leads the Himalayan Institute of UPES, Dehradun. She earned her PhD in sociology (2025) and MPhil (2017) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, following MA in sociology from IGNOU and BA (Hons) English literature from University of Delhi.

A seasoned folk theatre and film artist with twenty years of experience, Dr. Rai focuses her research on Himalayan performative traditions, specifically Kumaoni Ramlila and Jagar, exploring questions of language, identity, and ritual economy. She is currently leading a research project funded by Eicher Foundation (India) and co-owned by MIT (MA), wherein she is exploring how traditional dilapidated Himalayan buildings can be renovated with green building material such as hempcrete.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Rai is investigating the digital mediation of sacred Himalayan traditions within US institutional contexts. Her project, Technologies of Transmission, utilizes multi-modal ethnography to examine how ritual artifacts and embodied practices are archived and reimagined through immersive technologies such as virtual reality and digital humanities platforms. Her research seeks to analyze authenticity and cultural ownership to develop ethical archiving toolkits to preserve intangible cultural heritage transnationally.

Mukunda Upadhyay

Dr Mukunda Upadhyay is a senior policy expert, researcher, and programme implementer with more than a decade of experience across sectors, including disaster risk reduction, humanitarian response, transboundary water governance, climate change adaptation, migration, and urban issues. He has worked with government agencies, the UN system, and international organizations in dynamic, multi-stakeholder, and multidisciplinary settings. Some of his notable contributions include policy design to strengthen resilient systems, supporting effective emergency responses, designing technology-enabled systems for risk reduction, developing recovery frameworks for long-term resilience, and promoting dialogues for progressive transboundary water governance.

Dr. Upadhyay has contributed significantly to various transboundary water governance initiatives in South Asia, particularly to promoting citizen science, strengthening early warning systems, and implementing sustainability models, thereby fostering a sense of stewardship among key stakeholders. His current research interests focus on understanding transboundary riparian urban spaces in relation to shared risks, vulnerabilities and resilience. He completed his PhD in Population Studies from the Centre for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, under the guidance of Prof. (Retd.) Shrawan Kumar Acharya.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Upadhyay seeks to examine the conceived, perceived, and lived dimensions of transboundary urbanism in the Mahakali river basin in the Indo-Nepal border region. The research examines water governance, migration, trade, economic systems, and resilience-building in the context of the shared environmental risks faced by urban communities in these dynamic transboundary spaces.

Mohamed Haseeb Nechiyil

Dr. Mohamed Haseeb is an Assistant Professor of History at PSMO College (Autonomous), Tirurangadi, Kerala. He earned his BA in 2009 and MA in 2012 from the PSMO College affiliated to the University of Calicut, Kerala. In July 2025, he was awarded a PhD from Mangalore University in Karnataka. Dr. Mohamed Haseeb qualified for the UGC NET examination and was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship by the Indian Council of Historical Research.

Dr. Haseeb’s research interests are primarily in the fields of Indian Ocean history, the history of migration and water, and the Mappila songs of Malabar. He presented research papers at several conferences, including at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM), International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), British Forum for Ethnomusicology (BFE), and Royal Musical Association (RMA).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Haseeb is focusing on the Mappila songs in the archival collection of Dutch ethnomusicologist Arnold Adriaan Bake. During his fellowship, Dr. Haseeb aims to reanalyze, repatriate, and digitalize the archival recordings, re-record the songs with translations into English, and repatriate them back to the Mappila community of Malabar, where the memory of these old songs has been lost, keeping in mind the idea of “archives for the future”.

Mir Sumira

Dr. Mir Sumira works as Project Scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad’s Centre for Godavari River Basin Management and Studies in the Department of Civil Engineering. Her expertise lies at the intersection of disaster risk reduction, climate resilience, and sustainable development, built on years of field research in Jammu & Kashmir. An MSc gold medalist in disaster management (2015–2018), she completed her PhD in the subject from the University of Kashmir (December 2024). She was selected as a CDRI Fellow (Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure), 2023–2024 Cohort, where she designed and implemented protocols to strengthen systemic disaster resilience in mountainous regions by institutionalizing multi-stakeholder networks, processes, and mechanisms. She has certified training in geospatial technologies and applications from the Department of Space at National Remote Sensing Centre, ISRO. Her work reflects a strong commitment to bridging scientific research, community resilience, and policy innovation, with the aim of fostering disaster-resilient and climate-adaptive societies.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Sumira is working on developing a digital land resilience model, a GIS-based computational tool designed for rapidly urbanizing Himalayan cities such as Srinagar. It integrates multi-hazard assessments, climate change projections (CMIP6), urban growth models (CA–Markov, SLEUTH), and policy simulations (agent-based modelling) to identify risk hotspots and test nature-based vs engineered solutions. The final goal is to develop a scientifically validated, policy-ready resilience model that helps Indian mountain cities make climate-adaptive decisions. Working with US experts allows Dr. Sumira to bring cutting-edge digital resilience planning to the Himalayas.

Mehreen Fatima

Dr. Mehreen Fatima is an Assistant Professor of psychology at Azim Premji University, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. She was awarded a PhD in psychology in 2025 from the University of Delhi, under the supervision of Prof. Nandita Babu, with her doctoral work focusing on the development of empathy in children with autism spectrum disorder. She has also qualified for NTA NET-JRF in Psychology at the 99.82 percentile (June 2019).

Dr Mehreen’s research interests lie at the intersection of developmental and cognitive psychology, with a particular focus on socio-cognitive abilities across neurotypical and neurodivergent populations. She has published in major international journals and has a forthcoming book, Empathy Spectrum: Understanding Connections in a Diverse World, under contract with John Wiley & Sons, Inc. She has presented her research at major international conferences, including the 33rd International Congress of Psychology in Prague, Czech Republic, where she was selected as one of forty Emerging Psychologists by the International Union of Psychological Sciences. She was also selected for the inaugural Emerging Psychologist Programme (2025) by the National Academy of Psychology, India.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Jaswal Lab at the University of Virginia, Dr. Mehreen is investigating communication support practices for non-speaking autistic individuals, with a focus on neurodiversity-affirming approaches. Her research seeks to develop evidence-based frameworks that honor the communicative strengths and preferences of such individuals. She also aims to contribute to the growing body of research that centers autistic perspectives in the design and evaluation of communication interventions.

Mawonthing Ngashangva

Dr Ng Mawonthing is an independent scholar whose research centers on Tangkhul proverbs as vital expressions of cultural knowledge. Her doctoral work involved the systematic documentation and analysis of these proverbs, with particular attention to their rhetorical structures, social functions, and embedded worldviews, contributing to the preservation of an endangered linguistic and cultural heritage. She earned her BA and MA in English from the English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong, and was awarded PhD by the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati in 2025.

Dr Mawonthing’s broader academic interests include paremiology, folklore studies, and digital humanities, particularly community-driven approaches to cultural preservation.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Fuller Theological Seminary, California, Dr Mawonthing is developing a bilingual dictionary of Tangkhul-English proverbs, envisioned as a resource for both scholars and the wider public, making ancestral knowledge more accessible to younger generations while fostering cross-cultural understanding and dialogue.

Manisha Mohanty

Dr. Manisha Mohanty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She completed her PhD in English from Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Her doctoral research examined the intersections of food, gender, and identity in Indian and diasporic women’s food memoirs through the frameworks of feminist food studies, cultural studies, and gastro-politics. She earned her MPhil and MA in English from Utkal University, Odisha, where she was awarded the University Gold Medal for securing the highest rank at postgraduate level.

Dr. Mohanty’s research interests include food, gender, and cultural studies. Her work has been published in the journals Food, Culture & Society and the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, and she has contributed chapters to edited volumes published by Bloomsbury and Routledge. She is also the author of the forthcoming book Food Cultures of India: Cuisine, Customs, and Issues (Bloomsbury, 2027).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Mohanty is researching Indian American foodways between 1993 and 2013 by examining community cookbooks, family recipe collections, and early digital food content. Her project examines how culinary texts function as sites of cultural preservation, adaptation, and resistance within Indian American diaspora. The project investigates how recipes reflect evolving gender roles, negotiations of identity, and everyday acts of resilience in the context of globalization and changing American food culture.

Malavi Srikar

Dr. Malavi Srikar is a certified speech-language pathologist and researcher specializing in early social communication and autism. She completed her BSc at the SR Chandrashekar Institute of Speech and Hearing, Bangalore (2016), followed by an MSc from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore (2019). She subsequently earned her PhD in Speech-Language Pathology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore (2025). During her professional journey, she has also served as a tele-interventionist at AIISH (2020) and was a research scientist on an ICMR-funded project at NIMHANS (2026).

Dr. Srikar’s research centers on caregiver-infant dyadic interaction and caregiver-mediated tele-interventions for infants at elevated likelihood for autism. In 2022, she was awarded a Virtual Research Internship in Autism and Cultural Diversity by the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), collaborating with mentors from the University of Manchester to study these interactions in Indian dyads. She has received travel grants in 2024 and 2025 to present her work at the INSAR annual meetings and has published several articles in major international journals.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Srikar will examine dyadic engagement in infants at elevated likelihood for autism. During her fellowship, she will build on work pioneered by Prof. Grace Baranek to investigate the interrelationships between dyadic engagement and sensory responsivity patterns, representing the two core domains of autism, with the goal of informing early identification and intervention strategies.

Lakshyayog

Dr. Lakshyayog is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), working on a British Academy-funded collaborative project between the University of Oxford and NLSIU. He obtained his undergraduate degree in geography from the University of Delhi in 2015, followed by a postgraduate degree in geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2017. He was awarded a PhD from JNU in May 2025. His doctoral research was funded by the Junior and Senior Research Fellowships from the University Grants Commission. Previously, he worked with development sector organizations such as the World Resources Institute India and ActionAid India.

Dr. Lakshyayog’s research interests lie at the intersections of sports and urban development in India, specifically examining the promotion of everyday physical activity and leisure in cities. With research articles and chapters published in reputed journals and edited volumes, he has presented his research work at several international conferences. In March 2025, he was selected as a Writing Urban India Fellow 3.0 of the Urban Studies Foundation, UK and NLSIU.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Lakshyayog will explore the ways in which cities in India and the United States use sport to reshape urban space, mobilize real estate investment, and instrumentalize global visibility. Through a comparative study of Delhi and Ahmedabad in India and Atlanta and Los Angeles in the US, Dr. Lakshyayog aims to examine the emerging phenomenon of sports cities.

Kakoli Das

Dr. Kakoli Das is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Vidyasagar University. She is a multidisciplinary researcher, academician, and human resource professional. Dr. Das completed her MPhil in 2014 from the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata and was awarded PhD in development studies in 2023 from the same institution. In March 2026, she completed a professional course in public policy at the Centre for Policy Research and Governance, New Delhi.

Dr. Das was a Visiting Scientist at the Population Studies Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI Kolkata) and has also been associated with the World Health Organization. Her research interests lie primarily in demography and development studies, with a particular focus on fertility dynamics in developing countries, the behavioral economics of reproductive decision-making, and population policy. Her work has been published in reputable academic journals, featured in prominent media outlets, and presented at various academic platforms. She was awarded the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Institutional Fellowship for her doctoral research and is also a recipient of the European Union’s MSCA Seal of Excellence (2025).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Das is developing an innovative socio-cognitive framework to better understand the complex mechanisms of demographic transition in India and to identify key entry points for effective policy intervention. Through collaboration with US academics, her work aims to foster co-learning and contribute to the development of future-ready population strategies for India and beyond.