Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Vandana Saxena

Dr. vandana saxena is an evolving academician in the field of Diversity and Inclusion for the last three decades. She is a Professor of Education at CIE, Delhi University. She taught for four years in a school as a science teacher before joining CIE in November 1997. In her academic persuasion to cultivate a democratic educational environment, she is engaged with teaching, training, research & consultations focusing upon developing research-based thought-provoking pedagogical designs addressing issues of Diversity and Inclusion across all ages. She has worked on multiple projects & assignments with MHRD (India), World Bank, UGC, NCERT, NCTE, NIOS, RCI, and several civil society initiatives. She has addressed and written in, many national and international forums. Her prime contemplation is on Conceptualizing Research in Education, Driving Research Questions, Academic Writing, and Ethics in Research, for which she is conducting workshops with researchers in various universities at the Pan-India level.

She has been diligently promoting the case of equal opportunities for all, symbolized by the conscious use of lowercasing for the writing of her name.

As an essential part of the Fulbright grant, Dr. saxena will be designing the course curriculum and teaching in the Departments of Education at Mississippi Valley State University (MS). She will be engaged in field visits and community outreach programs. Along with academic persuasions, she plans to create opportunities for cultural exchange with students and faculty members of MVSU. Placed at the center of the civil rights movement, she is hopeful of developing deeper theoretical insights furthering the process of conceptualizing perspectives in diversity and inclusion.

Geeta Nair

Dr. Geeta Nair is Professor and Head of Department of Business Economics at H. R. College of Commerce & Economics for over 3 decades. She is also Director of Research Initiatives, Chair of Board of Studies in Business Economics, HSNC University, and member of Board of Studies in Business Economics at University of Mumbai. She is the Centre Head of PhD Centre in Business Economics and has successfully guided 5 students, with 7 new students registered under her.

She has been awarded 5 Minor Research Projects of the University of Mumbai, 1 Major Research Project of the UGC, 2 Post-doctoral Indo-French collaborative research projects jointly by FMSH, Paris and the ICSSR & UGC, Delhi. She has been invited to several prestigious international conferences at the London School of Economics, UNESCO, SUNY-Cortland, Salzburg Resilience & Decent Work Conference; and has over 100 reputed publications with 4 books published by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. She is also listed in the ‘Marquis Who’s Who’ list in Economics.

During her Scholar-in-Residence Program Fulbright Fellowship for 4 months at New Jersey City University, she will start a new course on the Indian Economy and enrich the existing Economics syllabi by covering the developing country’s perspective. She will also conduct research in the area of “Cost-Benefit Analysis of Online Learning in Higher Education in the US- Learning Lessons for India”.

Kalpana Hulluru

Dr. Kalpana Hulluru is a Professor in the Department of English, Pondicherry University (PU), Puducherry, India. She strongly believes that literature provides critical thinking skills that will help students/scholars to live life meaningfully. Her strengths are strategic approaches to teaching mixed groups of students and innovative teaching methods. She has successfully completed three research projects with an ongoing SPARC project. She has many awards and fellowships to her credit. A few notable ones are the USA’s ‘Study of Institutions Award’ (2007) and the SICI’s ‘Faculty Mobility Grant’ (2016). She was an invited keynote speaker for the Open National Science Day (2018) at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. She has to her credit several publications and has contributed a chapter on the Tamil language Classic, Silappadikaram to A Companion to World Literature (Wiley, 2019). She is an able research guide and is recognized as an outstanding teacher at her institution.

At Metropolitan State University, Denver, CO, Kalpana, besides teaching upper-division Literature courses, would offer courses on Women’s Writing and Feminism that would be cross-listed with the university’s Gender Institute. As part of the outreach, she would be delivering the annual Gandhi Memorial Lecture sponsored by Denver Sister Cities International and also interact with high school students at the Denver Centre for International Studies. Further to teaching and outreach programs, she intends to research Asian American Children’s literature concerning gender. By the end of her stay, she hopes to develop an MoU between the universities to link online courses, foster student-scholar exchanges and initiate collaborative research.

Aadil Zeffer Sofi

Mr. Aadil Zeffer is a PhD candidate in English at Lovely Professional University, a private university in Jalandhar in the state of Punjab. He has two master’s degrees — in English from Central University of Kashmir and in Urdu from Maulana Azad National Urdu University. He was an English trainer for three years at a technical and vocational college in Saudi Arabia. He earned Cambridge certified CELTA and took courses in learning Spanish, Italian, and French.

Mr. Zeffer is an author of a book An Educational Supplement. His second book Convergence, which will be published soon focuses on uniting our collective spirit. He is also working on a book on Postmodern Gothic which is his thrust area. He has published several research papers in international as well as UGC care-listed journals.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he will use innovative teaching methods aiming to improve the linguistic ability of foreign language learners and this endeavor in turn, will enrich his pedagogical skills. He believes that the Fulbright FLTA program provides a wonderful platform for teaching learning experience and cultural exchange. He plans to use this Fulbright experience in his future academic and teaching assignments.

Harshita Srivastava

Ms. Harshita Srivastava is an independent scholar from Kolkata. She completed her master’s in English in 2021 from St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata and received the Britto Gold Medal for securing the first rank at the university. She has also received a Junior Research Fellowship. In her undergraduate years at Loreto College, she received the Madhumita Mitra Memorial Award for responsibility and sincerity; Nirmal Sharma Memorial Award for securing the highest marks in Hindi; Bibhas Roy Award for overall excellence; and certificates for proficiency in political science, French and Hindi. She has served as the Secretary of the Literary Society both at her undergraduate and graduate institutions; and has been on the editorial board of the college/university magazines.

Ms. Srivastava has authored a volume of poems titled ‘Corona Diary, Before and Beyond’ published by Writers Workshop. She has translated a volume of Hindi poems to English titled ‘Wheel of Creation’ authored by Dr. Rakhi Roy Halder. Her research interests mainly include the Divine Feminine in Hinduism and partition literature. She has presented and published research papers on these topics.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Srivastava is teaching Hindi at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She aims to make the experience of her students as meaningful as possible by highlighting the cultural nuances as an integral element of the language learning process. In addition, she hopes to imbibe the teaching pedagogy of the U.S. so that new ideas may be formed and used in her teaching career.

Reetika Negi

Dr. Reetika Negi is an independent researcher and has a keen interest in the role of language in education and knowledge building, preservation, and dissemination. Currently, she is researching on the status of the regional languages like Kumaoni and Garhwali at the school level and in higher education.

She has completed her PhD and master’s in linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She received UGC NET-JRF scholarship in linguistics from 2015 to 2020. Her PhD thesis focused on aspects of representation, identity, and agency of Kumaoni women in folklore and literary/oral traditions of the region. It explored the relation between language and gender and presented a sociolinguistic assessment of women’s linguistic/cultural practices and traditional knowledge systems.

As a teaching assistant at the Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, she taught an introductory course on linguistics to undergraduate students. She has worked as a linguist with Panlingua Language Processing LLP on audio transcription and corpus building on Kumaoni and Hindi languages. She is also an active member of Linguistic Society of India and the Society for Endangered Languages, India.

As a Fulbright Language Teaching Assistant, Dr. Negi will teach Hindi at Brown University. She is keen on getting a hands-on experience of the higher education system in the U.S. and learn more about American culture. At the same time, she wishes to teach students more about the nuances of Hindi, India’s linguistic and cultural diversity and work towards expanding her scholarship and teaching skills.

Rimjhim Kumari

Ms. Rimjhim Kumari is working as a team member for RESPIN project in the Spire Lab in IISc, Bangalore. She excelled in academic by bagging a gold medal in her bachelor’s and achieving a first class in her master’s in English at Patna University. She served as the student representative in the Departmental Council, a student library representative, and on editorial board of the students’ journal Iris and the department newsletter WhatsHapp during her master’s degree.

Ms. Kumari actively participates in conferences and seminars and has helped organize lectures, workshops, and a national seminar in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences on Cultural Practices of Labour in Migration during her masters. She also presented a poster in the 2nd International Conference on Indigenous Languages: Towards Sustainable Multilingualism, held at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. She has also published a few articles and academic papers. She has been a part of several private and social organizations in the capacity of a writer, editor, and annotator. She recently completed her Bachelor of Education and has a good command in Hindi, Magahi, and English language.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Kumari is teaching Hindi at Wake Forest University. She believes that her skills and experiences of Indian cultural ethos would amplify her understanding of numerous cultures and identities across the globe.

Aishwarya Gupta

Ms. Aishwarya Gupta is a PhD candidate at the Department of Linguistics at the English and Foreign Languages University, Lucknow. Her doctoral research focuses on Mahatma Gandhi’s language use to address social issues, diverse language movements, and linguistic choices. Her research explores the cause-effect relationships of human interactions across socio-political contexts, focusing on interdisciplinary studies of discourse analysis, rhetoric, cognition, educational pedagogy, and international relations. She has a gold medal in her master’s in linguistics from the University of Lucknow. She is a member of the Linguistic Society of India and America. Her works have been published in reputed journals and featured in several national and international conferences.

As a language teacher, Ms. Gupta has worked closely with the staff and students at a primary school and for underprivileged Kasturba girls. She has developed many language proficiency pedagogies to enhance their communication skills. She is also passionate about contributing to society through sustainable development. She has drafted the United Nations UNCTAD Youth Declaration 2021 alongside being a facilitator and speaker of its Youth Network, amongst other interactions with the ambassadors of many countries.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Gupta will teach Hindi at Michigan State University. Considering cross-cultural linguistic knowledge as a global factor, Ms. Gupta seeks to use her Fulbright experience to give impetus to existing language methods that offer possible solutions and build innovative ways of effective communication towards problem-solving conversations to better establish language understanding, fostering cultural exchange and developing as a future educator.

Faaizah Ghazi

Ms. Faaizah Ghazi is a Junior Research Fellow at the Centre for Spanish and Latin American Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She completed her postgraduation in English literature from Lady Shri Ram College for Women in Delhi in 2019. She also holds an advanced diploma in Spanish from the University of Delhi. She has received various academic accolades throughout her school and university education. She recently qualified for the Delhi Subordinate Service Selection Board examination for Post Graduate Teacher of English.

Ms. Ghazi has as a teacher in multiple projects with the Delhi Government, the Tripura Government, British Council, and Macmillan Education. She has been a part of the ed-tech platforms Mastree and PlanetSpark where she taught and mentored students of various ages and backgrounds across India and the Middle East. She has also taught English to undergraduate students at the University of Delhi’s Non-Collegiate Women’s Education Board (NCWEB).

She is selected for the national annual Gurukul program of 2022 by The Foundation of Universal Responsibility wherein she will be culturally immersed in Tibetan and Buddhist philosophy, arts, and the teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

As a Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Ghazi will teach Hindi at the University of Utah. She is interested in using languages and literature to promote cultural pluralism and transgressive ideation in pedagogic discourse. She hopes to achieve this not only through collective discussions but also through individual logotherapy sessions.

Kritika Dhyani

Ms. Kritika Dhyani is working at Union World School in Dehradun. Prior to this, she worked as an assistant professor of English in the Department of Humanities at Shivalik College of Engineering, Uttarakhand Technical University, Dehradun. She conducted several courses in English language, literature, and linguistics in classrooms of varied sizes and language competencies. She completed her MA and BA from Hansraj College, University of Delhi. She worked as a teaching volunteer with National Service Scheme instructing underprivileged children. She has a level A2 certificate of proficiency in German from Doon University, Dehradun. She is a gold medallist in her M.Phil. degree in English Language Teaching from Banasthali Vidyapith, Rajasthan. She is pursuing a postgraduate diploma in Translation Studies from Indira Gandhi National Open University.

In her academic oeuvre, Ms. Dhyani has read papers in various seminars and conferences. She considers her paper Media, Nudity, and Gender- Interactions a superlative articulation. Her M.Phil. dissertation is titled Rhetoric of Political Speeches: A study of Donald Trump’s Political campaign. Her areas of interest include deconstruction, gender studies, intersectionality, reader-response criticism, and cultural studies.

As a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Ms. Dhyani will teach Hindi at Yale University. Apart from teaching, she will focus on the exchange of the practices which are an assortment of social, cultural, religious, and regional facets informing language. She aims at utilizing the opportunity to situate and start a dialogue to bring a shift in the dominant narrative about local practices, enhancing mutual understanding of spatial and cultural discourse.