Dr. Asima Sahu is Professor of Political Science at the School of Social Sciences, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack. She has more than three decades of teaching and research experience. Her research areas include South Asian affairs, gender studies, Indian political processes, development studies, and nuclear non-proliferation. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Hyderabad, her M.Phil. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and her Ph.D. from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar. She has published nine books and several research articles in peer-reviewed journals and has participated in several national and international conferences. In addition to successfully completing research projects sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), Dr. Sahu is an Assessor at NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council) and visits different higher education institutions for their accreditation evaluation.
Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters
Tanya Mary Koshy
Tanya Mary Koshy is Senior Program Manager at the Office for International Affairs, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai. At TISS, she oversees all operational, administrative, and program management aspects of the international office. She develops, facilitates, and organizes exchange and teaching programs, including dual and joint degrees, research projects, international admissions, field exposure, and cultural immersion activities for students and researchers, workshops, and high-level conferences. She has a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Pune and a master’s degree in international security from Sciences Po, Paris. Before joining TISS, she worked in the fields of anti-trafficking, conservation, sustainable development, and country of origin research.
Anil Kumar Tripathi
Dr. Anil Kumar Tripathi is Professor of Biotechnology and Director of the Institute of Science at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. At BHU, Dr. Tripathi was instrumental in establishing a DST-supported state-of-the-art Sophisticated Analytical Technical Help Institute (SATHI) and a BIRAC-supported Bioincubator for Nurturing Entrepreneurship for Scaling Technologies (BioNEST). Since their inception, he has served as Coordinator of both SATHI-BHU and BioNEST-BHU. Dr. Tripathi obtained his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in botany from Banaras Hindu University and has published 92 peer-reviewed articles. His research focus on genetics, genetic engineering, systems biology, and synthetic biology of a plant growth promoting bacterium. He is a recipient of the prestigious J C Bose National Fellowship in addition to several other national awards and grants.
Prabin Kumar Panigrahi
Dr. Prabin Kumar Panigrahi is the Dean (Faculty) and Professor of Information Systems at Indian Institute of Management Indore. Prior to this, he was the Chair of Post Graduate Programme and Chair of Executive Post Graduate Programme of the institute. He holds his master’s from National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India, and Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India. His current teaching and research interests include Emerging Technologies, Technology Adoption, Analytics, Social Inclusion in Information System, Cyber Security, and Artificial Intelligence. Prabin has various professional honours, awards, and fellowships both internationally and nationally across teaching, research, and industry. He has published several research articles and cases in peer reviewed international journals and case repositories of repute. He is also a member of the editorial board for some international journals. Prabin is also member of high-level committees in state, central government, and corporate bodies.
C. Krishna Mohan
Dr. C. Krishna Mohan is Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Hyderabad, and has served as Dean of Public and Corporate Relations at the institute. He was also the founder Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Hyderabad. He received his M.Tech. from NITK Surathkal and his Ph.D. from IIT Madras. Dr. Krishna Mohan heads the Visual Learning and Intelligence Lab at IIT Hyderabad, working in the research areas of video content analysis, computer vision, machine learning, and deep learning. He has published more than 90 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings. He serves as a reviewer for several reputed international conferences and IEEE journals, and is Senior Member of IEEE; Member of ACM; AAAI Member; Life Member of ISTE; and Fellow of IEI, IETE, and TAS.
Elizabeth Joseph Abba
Dr. Elizabeth Joseph Abba is Associate Professor at the School of Sustainability and Associate Dean of International Programs, XIM University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She serves as a member of the joint board of Xavier-Emlyon Business School , Alumni Association and is the MAGIS Exchange Program Liaison at XIM. She also coordinates the Sustainability Discovery Program, an immersive and first-hand learning experience for students to understand sustainable communities. Dr. Abba is also an adjunct faculty member at the Division of Environmental Health, San Diego State University (SDSU). Her research interests include fine particles speciation and source apportionment, health-effect linkages due to air pollution, indoor air quality measurement, community development, and sustainability management. She was awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral and Professional Research Scholarship (2008-09) that supported her nine-month stint at SDSU. Since 2013, she has been hosting SDSU undergraduate students on study abroad programs in India. She earned her Ph.D. in environmental management from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering, Mumbai.
Barani Gunatharan
Dr. G. Barani is Associate Professor at the Bharathiar School of Management and Entrepreneur Development and the founder Coordinator of BU-Centre for International Affairs, Bharathiar University (BU), Coimbatore. She is a participant of the Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies training course “Management of Internationalization” organized by Leibniz University Hannover, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and the German Rectors’ Conference. She participated in the U.S.-India Higher Education Collaboration and Internationalization training course sponsored by the U.S. Mission in India and coordinated by Miami University. She was the Indian delegate to NAFSA 2022 conference in Denver, Colorado and presented at NAFSA 2023 held in Washington, D.C. Dr. Barani has published eight books and over 60 research articles in journals of national and international repute. In addition to receiving prestigious research grants from ICSSR IMPRESS and RUSA, she has participated in several international conferences in Singapore, Dubai, and the U.S.
Alka Anil Mahajan
Dr. Alka Anil Mahajan is the Dean of the Mukesh Patel School of Technology, Management & Engineering, NMIMS University, Mumbai. With over 36 years of experience in teaching and administration, she is responsible for the academic administration of the school’s seven engineering campuses across the country. She earned her Ph.D. in electronics and communication engineering from the Delhi Technological University and is an active researcher with several publications in international journals and conferences proceedings. As a member of the Standing Committee on the scheme of Development of Women’s Studies in Indian Universities and Colleges and Capacity Building of Women Managers, constituted by the Indian Ministry of Education, Dr. Mahajan played an instrumental role in preparing the 12th Five Year Plan of the University Grants Commission (UGC) Scheme and Guidelines on Capacity Building for Women Managers in Higher Education. She serves on the editorial and reviewer boards of several international journals and is credited with introducing innovative pedagogical techniques to improve student learning and impacting academic administration through her resourceful ideas.
Rupa Agarwal
Prof. Rupa Agarwal has 28 years of experience in various aspects of design. The most significant contribution is in design education. She has handled many academic administrative posts in National Institute Fashion Technology, notable amongst which are Chairperson of Department of Fashion Communication and Chairperson of the Master of Design program, Campus Academic Coordinator (Academic Head) of the Mumbai Campus. She is currently heading the craft cluster initiative at NIFT across all its 18 campuses as Head Cluster and is located at NIFT Mumbai. Her core teaching areas are Design Methodology, Design Research, Interactive spaces, Design History and Sustainable systems. Her expertise in curriculum design has led her to be part of many committees within NIFT. She is part of the core committee to develop the curriculum of Design Thinking for classes 6-12. It is being facilitated by the Department of Skill development, Ministry of Education for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). There are over 3,000 schools that are running the course in 2023-2024.
She believes that teaching is a creative process. Design thinking must be applied to design teaching as well. She is passionate about the ways in which designers could use their unique skills to solve sustainability issues. In the process of doing her Ph.D. from IDC School of Design, IIT Bombay, she developed a nuanced understanding of the subject. Her endeavor was to develop a versatile model that is relevant in any domain of design. The research contribution of her thesis was a conjecture-analysis model for integrating sustainability in design pedagogy.
Sakshi Shukla
Ms. Sakshi Shukla is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB), Mumbai. The aim of her Ph.D. thesis is to identify a biomarker to predict Levodopa Induced Dyskinesia (LID) in Parkinson’s disease patients based on multimodal neuroimaging, clinical and behavioral characteristics. She is one of the Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN) Global Scholars selected in 2022 to participate in the online MRI graduate program and clinical neuroimaging course at Oxford University, UK.
Ms. Shukla has completed her bachelor’s degree in zoology (H) from Daulat Ram College, University of Delhi. Later, she pursued her master’s in medical biotechnology and graduated as a gold medalist from Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak. She has qualified exams such as CSIR-UGC NET JRF, GATE, BET, CEEB, IIT-JAM. Beyond academics, she loves to interact with people and acquire new skills. She is an outdoor enthusiast and loves to travel to natural places.
During the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship tenure, Ms. Shukla is learning newer techniques in medical imaging for movement disorders, such as Neuromelanin MRI, and NODDI (neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging). She intends to draw meaningful inferences from the collected data with the help of a clinical neuroimaging expert.