Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Dhara Kanchan

Ms. Dhara Kanchan is a passionate scholar deeply interested in language, literature, culture, and Indian classical music. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Gargi College, University of Delhi, and a master’s degree in English from Banasthali Vidyapith, Jaipur. Fluent in Hindi and English, she has intermediate proficiency in the Bundelkhandi dialect, and elementary knowledge of Sanskrit and French. Actively engaged in academic discourse, she co-translated a classic Hindi text published in Becoming Translators: Theory and Practice of Translation. She has presented papers at national conferences and would like to pursue PhD research at the intersection of translation studies, cultural studies, philosophy, and folkloristics.

Dhara’s academic engagements are complemented by active social engagement through the National Service Scheme, including teaching underprivileged children at St. Stephen’s College’s Social Service League. She has over five years of training in Indian classical ragas on the synthesizer under Ustad Latif Ahmad Khan. She recently began learning the flute. She is a certified yoga practitioner (Patanjali Yogpeeth) and holds a diploma in the Bhagavad Gita from ISKCON in Ayodhya, enriching her understanding of Indian philosophy.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant in Hindi at Wesleyan University, Dhara is aiming to create an immersive, learner-centric classroom by integrating literature, art, and cultural media. This opportunity to teach, audit courses, and immerse herself in American culture will deepen her intellectual horizons and pedagogy. For Dhara, this Fulbright journey reflects her core principle: Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye (knowledge is that which liberates), fostering transformation for self and society.

Akshiti Sharma

Ms. Akshiti Sharma recently completed her MA in English from the English and Foreign Languages University, submitting a dissertation focused on developing accessible and inclusive learning materials for ESL learners through Translanguaging. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi, where she was actively involved in the institute’s debating and literature societies, as well as the National Service Scheme (NSS).

Beyond academics, Akshiti has been deeply engaged with social initiatives through her work with the NGO Connecting Dreams Foundation. There, she contributed to Project Kilkari, teaching underprivileged children practical communication skills and empowering women from marginalized communities with technological literacy. She has worked as a content developer with Disha Publication Inc. and BookWatch. She recently translated a Hindi novella into English, blending her interests in language, education, and cultural exchange.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of Michigan, Akshiti is contributing to the university’s South Asian Language Program, fostering cross-cultural understanding and further exploring translanguaging practices and development of innovative materials to create more inclusive and effective language teaching methodologies. She hopes to apply insights gained from the Fulbright program to enrich language education in India, particularly for multilingual learners in diverse contexts.

Sheryl Alexander

Ms. Sheryl Alexander earned her master’s degree in English literature from the University of Delhi in 2023, after completing her bachelor’s degree from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi. In addition, she completed another master’s degree in Migration and Diaspora Studies from Indira Gandhi National Open University in 2025. She has worked as a lecturer in the Department of English at St. Xavier’s College, Jaipur, where she taught undergraduate courses in Romantic and pre-Romantic poetry, Indian writing in English, and foundation English language studies.

Her research interests lie at the intersection of memory studies, migrant diasporas, and minority studies, with published works on literary hauntology, diasporic identities, and cultural memory. She has been a research intern at the Centre for Memory Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. She has also contributed to the Indian Network for Memory Studies, in addition to presenting papers at national and international conferences. Beyond teaching at a university, she has volunteered with Dalit and migrant communities in Jaipur, where she explored inclusive and interactive language pedagogy.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Sheryl is a primary instructor of Hindi at the University of Kansas. She is also involved in curriculum designing and developing learning resources for the language program. She hopes to utilize her Fulbright experience to foster cross-cultural dialogue by integrating her research insights on literature, memory studies, and diaspora narratives into language instruction to create a holistic learning experience. She aims to enrich her pedagogical practices with intercultural perspectives to bring back to her classroom in India and contribute to building meaningful academic exchange between India and the United States.

Sameera Jain

Ms. Sameera Jain is a film editor, director and educator. She has an interest in structuring pedagogic practice which pushes the boundaries of the documentary form and interrogates accepted codes around it. She directed the Creative Documentary Course (2013-23) SACAC, New Delhi.

After doing graduation in English literature, Ms. Jain went on to study filmmaking at the Film and TV Institute of India. She has been working in the field of cinema in various capacities for over four decades. Ms. Jain has conducted master classes, participated in film juries, spoken at various forums, and has had retrospectives of her work.

Some of the films Ms. Jain directed are Mera Apna Sheher (My Own City), Portraits of Belonging, Born at Home and If You Pause. She has edited documentaries, experimental shorts, essays, installations, and fiction. Some of the films she has edited are A Season Outside, A Night of Prophecy, The Lightning Testimonies, A Quiet Little Entry, Immoral Daughters, Such a Morning, Soul of Sand, Reaching Silence and Shadows in The Dark. The work has been shown across the world and won several awards.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence (Research) fellowship at UnionDocs, New York, Ms. Jain is exploring the possibilities of pedagogical structures and methods which facilitate exploration of the politics of representation through rigorous study and experimentation, to catalyze and nurture expressions that find their form afresh. In addition, she will work towards a draft of a publication that addresses experimental non-fiction film art pedagogy.

Sumeet Mhaskar

Prof. Sumeet Mhaskar is a Professor of Sociology at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, O. P. Jindal Global University. He earned his doctorate in Sociology from the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and holds MA and MPhil degrees in political science from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is a recipient of the prestigious research fellowship awarded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His distinguished career includes fellowships at renowned institutions such as Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Stanford University, Göttingen University and Kassel University.

Prof. Mhaskar’s research comprehensively explores the multifaceted vulnerabilities workers face at the lower end of India’s burgeoning economy. His scholarly contributions have been featured in peer-reviewed journals, edited books, magazines, policy reports, and working papers. Additionally, he shares his insights through opinion pieces, newspapers and online portals such as The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, and The Hindu.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence fellowship, Prof. Mhaskar is planning to investigate technological innovations in the production process and their impact on occupational choices in the modern textile industry in Mumbai from the 1870s to 2009. This historical-sociological inquiry will examine how social structures, including gender, caste, and religion, interact with these processes. He employs a comprehensive multi-method approach that includes statistical analysis, archival research, and qualitative methods. Prof. Mhaskar will also explore similar processes in textile mills located in the USA.

Praveen Pathak

Dr. Praveen Pathak is a Scientific Officer at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR, Mumbai, a premier national institute dedicated to research and development in science and mathematics education. He has twenty years of experience in science education research, focusing on student misconceptions, teaching-learning methods, and designing hands-on activities and experiments from middle school to undergraduate physics. Dr. Pathak plays a key role in India’s Physics and Junior Science Olympiad programs, where he is involved in selecting, coaching, and mentoring the Indian team for the International Olympiads. He is also part of the NCERT textbook development team, contributing to creating science education resources for schools across India. He strongly believes in teaching through hands-on experiences and is passionate about science popularization, regularly contributing to scientific writing in Hindi to make science accessible to a wider audience.

Dr. Pathak’s recent work has focused on developing low-cost, smartphone-based experimental kits to improve science education, especially in schools with limited laboratory resources. By leveraging mobile sensors, his research aims to bring affordable hands-on learning experiences to students and teachers.

During his Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, Dr. Pathak is designing and evaluating a scalable smartphone-powered experimental kit, integrating it into school curricula to foster experiential learning. He will also conduct teacher workshops and collaborate with educators in the US to assess the impact of smartphone-based experiments on student engagement and learning outcomes.

Meenakshi Shukla

Dr. Meenakshi Shukla is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at University of Allahabad, Prayagraj, India, with more than seven years of teaching and research experience. Her research interests involve exploring the relationship of emotions and emotional disorders with health. Her research delves into the intriguing phenomenon of cardiovascular emotional dampening, exploring how challenges in recognizing emotions relate to elevated blood pressure.

Dr. Shukla has completed her graduation, post-graduation, and PhD from Banaras Hindu University. She was awarded the Junior and Senior Research Fellowships by the University Grants Commission of India to pursue her PhD research. She has been the recipient of the Commonwealth Split-site (PhD) Scholarship in 2016-2017 by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CSC) to carry out a part of her doctoral research work at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London, United Kingdom. She is a member of the CSC Alumni Advisory Panel.

Dr. Shukla’s Fulbright-Nehru project investigates the role of cardiovascular emotional dampening — a reduced ability to recognize emotions linked to elevated blood pressure — in shaping the cultural adaptation and health of first-generation Indian immigrants in the United States. It examines whether cardiovascular emotional dampening influences the choice of acculturation strategies (assimilation, integration, separation, or marginalization) among Indian immigrants and how these strategies impact their long-term cardiovascular health. The study also examines the “immigration paradox”, exploring why recent Indian immigrants often have better health than long-term residents despite greater stressors.

Nirmala Menon

Prof. Nirmala Menon is a Professor in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), IIT Indore, and leads the Digital Humanities and Publishing Research Group. Prof Menon is the Chair of J. P. Narayan National Centre of Excellence in the Humanities at IIT Indore and is an affiliate Research Professor with the University of Oxford. She is the author of four books with the latest Practices of Digital Humanities in India: Learning by Doing (Routledge, 2024). She is also the co-editor of the first multilingual volume of e-literature published from India (2024). Prof. Menon has received various national and international grants and awards (MHRD, SPARC, UKEIRI, and Academia Europaea among others). She has also hosted Fulbright Scholars in her lab and along with her students, received international awards such as Charles Wallace Fellowship, Zubaan Sasakawa Publishing prize and ASEM-DUO fellowship.

During her Fulbright Research Fellowship, Prof. Menon will be working on a book project that explores the challenges and possibilities of developing a multilingual scholarly publishing ecosystem. The book examines the infrastructural, economic and intellectual challenges of developing a robust scholarly publishing set-up in the coming years. New technologies along with the rapid advancement of AI tools will shape the direction and policies of scholarly communication in the coming years and this book looks at issues of language and access within that discourse. Prof. Menon will also be working with Prof. Julia Flanders on the DHQ: Digital Humanities Quarterly Journal and contribute to and learn from its best practices.

Salom Gnana Thanga Vincent

Dr. Salom Gnana Thanga Vincent (Association of Commonwealth Universities Blue Charter Fellow: 2019-2020) is a Professor at the Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Kerala, Kerala, India. She is a graduate in agriculture, a postgraduate, and a doctorate in environmental sciences from Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. Prof. Vincent worked as Head of the Department of Environmental Science for two terms and as the Director of the School of Earth System Sciences, University of Kerala. She is a member of the Scientific Strategic Board and adjunct faculty of the Centre of Excellence in Microbiome (CoEM), Government of Kerala, India. She is a member of the editorial board of Wetlands Ecology and Management and associate editor for Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science. Her broad research area is the benthic ecology of coastal ecosystems. Her work specifically focuses on the structural and functional diversity of microbes in the coastal environment of Kerala and relates the benthic diversity to environmental and anthropogenic impacts. At present, her research is also focused on the evaluation of environmental factors that influence the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance and the distribution of microplastics.

During her project for the Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, Prof. Vincent aims to explore the prevalence of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARGs) and antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) in microplastics of sewage. The work will contribute to the understanding of how microplastics act as a ‘Trojan horse’ in the environmental spread of ARB and ARGs.

Kumar Biradha

Professor Kumar Biradha is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. His research focuses on designing multifunctional supramolecular materials using innovative crystal engineering strategies. Specifically, his work explores cocrystals, gels, organic polymers, coordination polymers, metal-organic frameworks, and covalent organic frameworks, with potential applications in electrocatalysis, molecular sensing, solid-state [2+2] photo-dimerizations and polymerizations, gas adsorption, inclusion materials, semi conductivity, luminescence, and proton conductivity. Prof. Biradha earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Hyderabad, India, in 1997. He completed postdoctoral research at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Canada (1997–1998), and at Nagoya University in Japan (1998–2002). He has held several editorial and advisory roles throughout his career. He also worked as Associate Editor of Crystal Growth & Design, an ACS publication. With an H-index of 58, Prof. Biradha has published over 240 research articles in reputed international journals.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, Prof. Biradha is primarily looking to develop methods to reduce carbon dioxide into valuable small molecules. He is specifically working with MOFs that incorporate electron-rich aromatic struts and redox-active metal centers.