Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Sanjay Pratap Singh

Prof. Sanjay Pratap Singh (PhD, MBA, MSc in geology, LLB, qualified CSIR-UGC NET in geology, and UGC-NET in management) has worked as JRF, SRF and lecturer in the Department of Geology, University of Lucknow. He was director of the Sherwood College of Management, and vice-chairman of the Sherwood Group. He was also director of the Royal Group of Institutions, Guwahati, and later served in the Amity Group as senior vice-president and founder vice-chancellor of Amity University, Chhattisgarh. He is an active member of the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) – India chapter and had been conferred with the ‘Ambassador for Peace’ award by UPF – South Korea. He is the Global Vice President of Sun Moon University, South Korea. He is also a member of the Equivalence Committee and Governing Council of Association of Indian Universities (AIU).

He has been serving as vice-chancellor of the Assam Royal Global University for the last eight years. He launched the university with 13 schools that offered 55 courses in the first year itself, and currently has a total of 27 schools and over 130 programmes. The university has 7000 students, including 300 PhD scholars, and has been recognized as host institute/ business incubator by MSME, Government of India. The university has signed over 200 MoUs so far with other institutes for cross-cultural exposure.

Swati Pal

Prof. Swati Pal, professor and principal, Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi, has been a Charles Wallace scholar and the first Asian awardee of the John McGrath theatre studies scholarship. Author of several books on theatre, creative and academic writing, her newspaper articles articulate her views on education. Her areas of research interest include performance studies and cultural history. She translates from Hindi to English. She writes poetry and her poems appear in several anthologies. She also has a collection titled In Absentia, and an edited volume called Living on. She is the vice-chair of the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. She is the Delhi state-chair for the G100 wing for World Peace of the Women Economic Forum. She has been the recipient of several awards such as a Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contribution in the area of educational administration and planning besides gender development by Women’s Agency for Generating Employment (WAGE) in 2017; Exceptional Women of Excellence in Academia, 2017 Award by the All Ladies League and Women Economic Forum; the 34th Dr. S Radhakrishnan Memorial National Teacher Award in 2018; Esteemed Jury Award by COAE International in 2023; and the Best Principal Award by National Edu Trust of India for the year 2023-24 for commitment to integrating environmental education into teaching practices.

Swati Mujumdar

Dr. Swati Mujumdar is an international skill development and higher education expert. With over 20 years of professional experience in education and skill development, she has been advising governments at national and international levels on policy related matters in higher education, the blended education model, vocational education (TVET), and skill development. After years of research, Dr. Mujumdar has developed a unique ‘skill university’ model and under her able leadership, Symbiosis has established two skills universities namely Symbiosis Skills & Professional University, Pune and Symbiosis University of Applied Sciences, Indore. With an investment of over 100 million USD, the two universities have a strategic focus on developing skills and competencies in students, aligned to the needs of the industry. Dr. Mujumdar has participated in UNESCO deliberations on credit recognition and transfer systems in the Asia-Pacific region. She was also invited by UNESCO to Shenzhen to participate in regional consultation on ICT-driven innovation in higher education. She was appointed as a member of B20 taskforce on the future of work, mobility and skilling. With a focus on equity and inclusion, she has successfully spearheaded several projects on training underprivileged girls in STEM-education, skilling of unemployed youth in future skills, and capacity building of teachers/ trainers, and has, thereby, created opportunities for employment for thousands.

Alagu Manickavelu

Prof. Alagu Manickavelu is the director of the Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) at the Central University of Kerala. He holds a PhD in genetics and plant breeding, with specialized training in genomics and international agriculture from esteemed institutions in Japan and the CGIAR network. Since 2016, Prof. Manickavelu has been serving in various administrative capacities at the Central University of Kerala. His roles have included convenor of the International Linkage Committee, Fulbright campus representative, dean of Students’ Welfare, and head of the Department of Genomic Science. His leadership and dedication have significantly contributed to the university’s growth and international collaborations. Prof. Manickavelu’s academic journey includes a prestigious fellowship for post-doctoral research in Japan. He has successfully led numerous national and international research projects, guiding students from India and other developing countries such as Afghanistan, Brazil, and Paraguay. His scholarly contributions include 35 research articles, which have been presented at various national and international conferences. As the director of IQAC, Prof. Manickavelu is committed to positioning the Central University of Kerala on the global academic stage. His vision involves developing a robust model for international education, enhancing the university’s global engagement and reputation.

Dinesh Kumar

Prof. Dinesh Kumar, recipient of the prestigious Homi J. Bhabha Memorial Award from the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Sri Narendra Modi, is presently working as the vice-chancellor of Gurugram University, Gurugram. Prior to joining Gurugram University, he has worked as vice-chancellor of J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad between 2015 and 2021. He is an eminent academician, ardent researcher and able administrator, known for his leadership roles which span over 38 years. He obtained his master’s and PhD degrees from Cambridge University.

He was also conferred with the ‘Most Eminent Vice Chancellor Award’ by the All India Council of Human Rights, Liberties & Social Justice (AICHLS), and the ‘Rank Bandhu Shiksha Shiromani Samman’ for commendable contribution in the field of education. He was elected as president of the Section of Materials Science of the Indian Science Congress Association for the session 2017-2018.

He is a widely travelled person, and has been to France, Italy, Germany, Austria, England, USA, Russia, Australia, Spain, Taiwan and several other places for his research activities. He has published more than 140 research papers. A total of 22 students have already completed their PhD work under his guidance.

Soumyabrata Chakraborty

Prof. Soumyabrata Chakraborty is serving as the registrar of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, a leading private university recognized as an “Institution of Eminence” by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. As an academic administrator he has also served as the founding registrar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, and as the chief executive (Administration and Finance) of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata. Prof. Chakraborty is actively involved in international collaborations and is a signatory of the institute in Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) executed with foreign universities.

As a civil engineer, Prof. Chakraborty has industrial and combat engineering experience having worked at Tata Steel and later in the Indian Army. He made significant contributions to counter insurgency operations and led infrastructure projects, including bridge and road construction in India and Bhutan, housing societies and habitat development. His recent international academic engagements include being a speaker at the international seminar on “Space, Time, Civilization” in Egypt (October, 2023), participating in the Annual Legal Meet of the Aditya Birla Group in Bangkok (December, 2023), and participating in the government’s ‘Study in India’ mission in Bangladesh (February 2024).

Saptarshi Saha

Saptarshi Saha is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His doctoral research is focused on integrating causality into deep learning frameworks to enhance their utility. Beyond his immediate thesis goals, Saptarshi envisions a broader research trajectory aimed at utilizing deep learning for a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. His aim is to address various challenges such as improving the robustness, explainability, and interpretability of models, addressing issues with limited control over generative models, enhancing generalization performance under varying data distributions, dealing with learning using limited labelled data, promoting fairness in decision-making systems, and more. Saptarshi’s scholarly contributions extend to renowned journals such as TMLR and prominent conferences like ICLR. He has showcased his work at various research fora, such as Amazon Research Day 2023 and the Machine Learning Summer School in Okinawa, 2024.

Saptarshi holds a BS-MS dual degree in mathematics from IISER Kolkata. Throughout his BS-MS studies (2015–2020), he was a recipient of the INSPIRE fellowship from DST, Government of India.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Saptarshi is trying to utilize causal knowledge and principles to assess data quality and make informed decisions (in the context of learning with not enough data) regarding samples that need to be labelled (from the large unlabelled dataset) rather than selecting them randomly. He is primarily working on the challenge of efficiently selecting the most relevant samples for labelling while considering budget constraints. This challenge holds excellent relevance not only in academic research but also within the AI industry. Saptarshi is an avid nature photographer and finds solace in the wilderness. His interests extend to culinary adventures, globetrotting, and engaging with diverse cultures. His leisure activities also include playing football and cricket.

Wasim Niyaz Munshi

Wasim Niyaz Munshi obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, in 2021. He then joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to pursue an integrated MS + Ph.D. in civil engineering. His doctoral thesis focuses on developing a robust phase-field model for fracture propagation. The developed model will leverage parallel computing on distributed memory environments and adaptive mesh refinement to offset the high computational costs.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Colorado State University, Boulder, CO, Wasim is addressing the key limitation of the phase-field method, which is its high computational cost. The eventual outcome of this research will result in a unique 3D subsurface fracture propagation capability that addresses a key bottleneck for several industrial applications such as geothermal energy, shale gas exploration, and composites. Wasim has presented his initial work at reputed conferences like CFRAC 2023 and ISTAM 2023. In addition to several high-impact research publications, this research will also facilitate long-term collaborations between the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the host laboratory in the U.S. in a strategic area of national importance for both nations.

Coming from the picturesque valley of Kashmir, Wasim has a deep appreciation for nature. He loves spending time in nature and is particularly enthusiastic about hiking and camping. He enjoys travelling to new places and is very keen to learn about different cultures.

Sadaf Nausheen

Sadaf Nausheen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. She completed her MA in women’s studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and BA in political science from the University of Delhi. Such training has given her an interdisciplinary background which is reflected in her doctoral work that sits at the intersection of gender studies and urban studies. As an ethnographic study, her research focuses on narratives of Muslim women in understanding gendered experience of urban public space.

Nausheen has presented her work at several national and international conferences. She has also co-authored and published in a peer-reviewed international journal and other online fora. Sadaf has been a co-recipient of the Centenary Decade Undergraduate Research Grant funded by Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Additionally, she undertook funded research as part of the Sponsored Studies Project by the Indian Association for Women’s Studies that allowed her to imbibe practices of reflexivity and empathy in doing qualitative work. Her doctoral research looks at the experiences of urban spaces by analysing the exclusions, claim making processes, and belongingness of Muslim women in Hyderabad, India. Focusing on how Muslim women navigate their access to public space in the city, the research attempts to mainstream marginalised voices in theorising women’s experiences. Furthermore, it takes into account the differences within the category of the ‘Muslim woman’ in order to bring out a heterogeneous understanding of the same.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Sadaf is working on the methodological and analytical aspects of her Ph.D. project, while analysing the scope of intersectionality through various frameworks of study.

Sayari Misra

Sayari Misra is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), IIT Jammu. She completed her graduation in microbiology from Scottish Church College, Kolkata. After that, she did her post-graduation in social work (MSW) from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur and was awarded the institute gold medal for her academic performance. She has worked with Dr. S. Y. Quraishi (former Chief Election Commissioner of India) on his book on family planning titled The Population Myth as his research associate. Her research interests include themes of social stratification and inequality, social networks, and access to water and sanitation. Her ongoing doctoral study primarily focuses on mapping the accessibility to water resources and the social network structure of the rural communities of the Indian Sundarbans.

During extensive field visits in various remote locations in West Bengal, Sayari was drawn to the complex problem of climate-induced water-resource stress and associated vulnerabilities in resource-dependent communities like the Sundarbans. One key insight gained from her research is the pivotal role of social networks in influencing the accessibility of resources and mitigating vulnerabilities, especially among marginalized groups. However, the mechanism and importance of these social relationships in the context of water resource stress remain elusive.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Sayari is aiming to bridge the aforementioned knowledge gap by elucidating the nuanced interplay between social networks and water resource stress, particularly within marginalized communities.