Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

P. N. Vinayachandran

Prof. P. N. Vinayachandran is the Chair of the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). He obtained his MSc (Engineering) and PhD degrees from IISc and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Tokyo. He also served as a Senior Researcher at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). He is currently a professor of oceanography, with expertise spanning both field observations and numerical modelling of oceanic processes.

Prof. Vinayachandran’s research has made significant contributions to Indian Ocean science, particularly in the areas of ocean circulation and dynamics, air-sea interaction, and physical-biological interactions. He is a recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award, J. C. Bose Fellowship, and fellowships of science academies in India. There are regions in the world’s oceans where dissolved oxygen concentrations fall below levels critical for sustaining marine life. In the Indian Ocean, both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal host oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). However, the Arabian Sea contains one of the most intense OMZs in the world.

During his Fulbright–Nehru Fellowship, Prof. Vinayachandran is planning to investigate the processes governing oceanic OMZs and their changes using long-term simulations with a coupled physical-biogeochemical ocean model.

Josna Joseph

Dr. Josna Joseph is an Associate Professor in the Department of Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology at Christian Medical College, Vellore. She completed her PhD in Biological Sciences from Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala in 2010.

Dr. Josna’s research interests include molecular mechanisms underlying fibrosis, biomaterials, tissue engineering and cytocompatibility. Currently, she is involved in teaching and conducting basic research involving pathomechanism in fibrotic autoimmune disorders.

As a former Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School (2014-15), Dr. Josna gained research experience at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston VA Healthcare system. She is a recipient of Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Fund (split-site doctoral scheme) at National University of Singapore and APLAR Centre of Excellence fellowship at University of Environmental and Occupational Health, Fukuoka, Japan.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Josna plans to learn the intricacies of spatial biology techniques to unravel the double negative B cell-T cell interaction in the affected organs of IgG4-Related Disease patients. This would help to understand the spread of fibrosis from individual cellular interaction level to the extent of a tissue/organ, and to devise targetable mechanisms to delay the disease’s progression.

Ira Raja

Prof. Ira Raja is Professor of English at the University of Delhi. She received her PhD from La Trobe University, Australia. She works at the intersection of postcolonial studies, ageing, and material culture, with a focus on Indian literary and visual cultures. Her research examines how experiences of care, memory, and everyday life are shaped by, and in turn reshape, broader formations of identity, nation, and migration. She has published widely in journals such as Journal of Aging Studies, Postcolonial Studies, and Thesis Eleven, and has edited and co-edited several books, including Grey Areas: An Anthology of Contemporary Indian Fiction on Ageing.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Raja is exploring memory as a relational and culturally embedded process. Drawing on contemporary Indian fiction, her project challenges medicalized approaches that frame ageing primarily in terms of decline, showing how forgetting can also enable reinterpretation, selfhood, and social connection. By bringing multilingual Indian literary archives into dialogue with global debates in memory and ageing studies, the project contributes a South Asian perspective to interdisciplinary conversations in the humanities and the medical humanities.

Hemavathi Sugumar

Dr. Hemavathi Sugumar is a Senior Scientist (Scientist D) in Electrochemical Power Sources Division at CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute and Assistant Professor at the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR). She specializes in battery engineering, energy storage, and electric vehicle (EV) technologies. She holds a PhD in engineering sciences from AcSIR and an ME in power system engineering.

Dr. Sugumar’s research focuses on AI-enabled battery management systems (BMS), electro-thermal diagnostics, battery thermal management, and safety architectures for lithium-ion energy storage systems used in electric mobility and grid applications. She has led nationally relevant CSIR, DST and industry-funded projects on smart BMS development and thermal safety enhancement for mission-critical battery packs. She is a member of more than 20 national and international professional societies and multiple honors, including the IEI Young Engineers Award, INYAS & INAE Member, IEEE Senior Member, and Women in Energy Leadership Recognition (IESW 2025). Through her work, Dr. Sugumar continues to drive innovation in sustainable battery technologies and clean energy transition for India’s e-mobility future.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Sugumar is focusing on developing an advanced immersion cooling system for lithium-ion battery packs to improve thermal uniformity, reduce safety risks, and enhance lifecycle management under demanding operating conditions. Through this fellowship, she seeks to develop collaborative modeling and experimental frameworks, publish high-quality research outcomes, and build long-term Indo-U.S. partnerships in battery thermal management, sustainable energy systems, and safer electric-mobility technologies.

Hasan Raja Naqvi

Dr. Hasan Raja Naqvi is an Assistant Professor of geography at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI), New Delhi. He earned his PhD on “Watershed Management for Soil Conservation: A Case of Nun Nadi Watershed” in 2013 from the Department of Geography at JMI. He completed his undergraduate and master’s degrees in geography from Chaudhary Charan Singh University, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. His academic background comprises physical geography, environmental systems, and geospatial analysis.

Dr. Naqvi’s research interests include climate resilience, natural hazards, watershed management, air pollution, and geospatial technologies. He has published more than 50 research articles in national and international journals and presented his work in the United States, China, Taiwan, and Ethiopia. He has also completed an Indo-Taiwan collaborative project funded by the Indian Council of Social Science Research and received the Scientific High-Level Visiting Fellowship for France in 2024.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Naqvi is working on an interdisciplinary project which applies advanced GeoAI and climate analytics to improve flood-risk assessment, resilience planning, and sustainable watershed management in vulnerable regions of India and the United States.

Gulfishan Khan

Prof. Gulfishan Khan is a specialist in medieval Indian history. Till June 2024, she was professor and chairperson of the Department of History at Aligarh Muslim University (India). Her most recent publication is a paper Representations of the Palace and Cityscape (co-authored with W. M. Thackston) in the annual Muqarnas (Brill: 2024). Her major academic contributions are the two books Indian Muslim Perceptions (Oxford University Press, 1998) and Indo-Persian Elite (New Delhi: Manohar, 2025).

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Gulfishan Khan would be studying some important aspects of architectural refashioning of the dynamic capital (darul khilafa) Agra, a vibrant medieval urban settlement during the first half of the Seventeenth Century. In this significant period the Mughal court at Agra was the nucleus of a splendid flowering of art and artistic culture, based on blending of Indian and Perso-Islamic traditions under the liberal court-patronage of emperor Shah Jahan. The architectural contribution of imperial women in the aestheticization of the urban landscape of the historic capital and its environs would be highlighted.

Govind

Prof. Govind joined CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, New Delhi, as Scientist C in 2004 and was promoted to Scientist G in 2022. Since 2019, he has also served as a Professor at the Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research. His research has been recognised with several honours, including the Distinguished Lectureship Award and Medal from the Materials Research Society of India (MRSI), the IETE-CEOT Award, the NASI-Young Scientist Platinum Jubilee Award, and the DST-Young Scientist Award.

Prof. Govind is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, the Electron Microscopy Society of India, and an Associate Fellow of the Asia Pacific Academy of Materials. He received the BOYSCAST Fellowship from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, to serve as a visiting scientist at Rutgers University, USA, and the Yusuf Hamid International Exchange Fellowship from the Royal Society, UK, to serve as a visiting scientist at Cambridge University, UK. Prof. Govind has published over 430 research articles in international journals, as well as several books, book chapters, and patents.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Govind is developing a multisensory, integrated neuromorphic platform that emulates brain-inspired artificial neural networks for neuromorphic computing and environmental information processing. His work focuses on designing neuro-mimetic devices and memtransistors using 2D materials, and includes monolithic integration, stacking, and software architecture to deliver innovative tools for scientific and industrial applications.

Bijoy Chand Chatterjee

Dr. Bijoy Chand Chatterjee is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at South Asian University (SAU), New Delhi, and an Adjunct Faculty member at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIITD), India. Prior to joining SAU, he held positions at IIIT Delhi, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway, and The University of Electro-Communications, Japan, and has served as a Visiting Researcher at Kyoto University on multiple occasions.
Dr. Chatterjee has authored/co-authored over 150 research papers in reputed journals and conferences, including IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, IEEE Transactions on Communications, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, Journal of Lightwave Technology, and IEEE INFOCOM, and has co-authored two books published by Springer and CRC Press. He has led several national and international R&D projects and served on the technical program committees of major conferences, including IEEE ANTS, HPSR, ICC, NOMS, and GLOBECOM. His research focuses on optical networks, routing, and resource optimization. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a Fellow of IETE, and Vice-Chair of the IEEE Communications Society Delhi Chapter.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Dr. Chatterjee is aiming to develop next-generation optical networking frameworks using machine learning for large-scale deployment in India and the USA. His work emphasizes advanced resource allocation and intelligent network design, aligning well with ongoing efforts and offering strong potential for impactful collaboration in future communication systems.

Bidyananda Maibam

Prof. Bidyananda Maibam has a PhD from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is a Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences, Manipur University. He was a recipient of the BOYSCAST Fellowship sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India to conduct collaborative research at the University of Mainz, Germany. He applies elemental and isotopic compositions of rocks and zircons (U-Pb, Lu-Hf, and O) to study the formation and evolution of Archean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic rocks in India.
As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Maibam is deciphering which geodynamic processes predominated in the formation of the earliest continental crust. Due to the limited extent of the early rock record, it remains unclear whether plate tectonics was operative throughout Earth’s history or if there were major changes in the dominant mechanisms of continental crust formation over time. He is characterizing the geochemistry of Paleo-Mesoarchean zircons of the Singhbhum craton to provide constraints for a tectonic evolutionary model for this region, with broad-scale implications for how continents were formed on early Earth.

Barani Kanth Devarajan

Prof. Barani Kanth Devarajan is a Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at Pondicherry University, India, where he has been a founding faculty member since 2007. A recipient of the UGC Raman Postdoctoral Fellowship at Kent State University, USA, his expertise centers on cross-cultural quantitative research methods, psychometrics, youth mental health, and family relationships. He has led and collaborated on several international research projects involving scholars from the United States and Europe, with publications in leading peer-reviewed journals.

In addition to his academic contributions, Prof. Devarajan coordinates student mental health and counseling initiatives and professional training programs promoting accessible and culturally sensitive psychological support systems in higher education. He received the Certificate of Merit for Teaching from Pondicherry University for seven academic years.

As a Fulbright-Nehru scholar, Prof. Devarajan is examining the cultural and psychological factors influencing student mental health across India and the United States, as well as the structure, challenges, and best practices of campus mental health services. The project aims to support the development of culturally sensitive and effective campus mental health systems in India.