Archives: Meet Our India Fulbrighters

Manisha Mohanty

Dr. Manisha Mohanty is Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. She completed her PhD in English from Indian Institute of Technology Bhubaneswar. Her doctoral research examined the intersections of food, gender, and identity in Indian and diasporic women’s food memoirs through the frameworks of feminist food studies, cultural studies, and gastro-politics. She earned her MPhil and MA in English from Utkal University, Odisha, where she was awarded the University Gold Medal for securing the highest rank at postgraduate level.

Dr. Mohanty’s research interests include food, gender, and cultural studies. Her work has been published in the journals Food, Culture & Society and the Journal of Global Postcolonial Studies, and she has contributed chapters to edited volumes published by Bloomsbury and Routledge. She is also the author of the forthcoming book Food Cultures of India: Cuisine, Customs, and Issues (Bloomsbury, 2027).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Mohanty is researching Indian American foodways between 1993 and 2013 by examining community cookbooks, family recipe collections, and early digital food content. Her project examines how culinary texts function as sites of cultural preservation, adaptation, and resistance within Indian American diaspora. The project investigates how recipes reflect evolving gender roles, negotiations of identity, and everyday acts of resilience in the context of globalization and changing American food culture.

Malavi Srikar

Dr. Malavi Srikar is a certified speech-language pathologist and researcher specializing in early social communication and autism. She completed her BSc at the SR Chandrashekar Institute of Speech and Hearing, Bangalore (2016), followed by an MSc from the All India Institute of Speech and Hearing (AIISH), Mysore (2019). She subsequently earned her PhD in Speech-Language Pathology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore (2025). During her professional journey, she has also served as a tele-interventionist at AIISH (2020) and was a research scientist on an ICMR-funded project at NIMHANS (2026).

Dr. Srikar’s research centers on caregiver-infant dyadic interaction and caregiver-mediated tele-interventions for infants at elevated likelihood for autism. In 2022, she was awarded a Virtual Research Internship in Autism and Cultural Diversity by the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR), collaborating with mentors from the University of Manchester to study these interactions in Indian dyads. She has received travel grants in 2024 and 2025 to present her work at the INSAR annual meetings and has published several articles in major international journals.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Srikar will examine dyadic engagement in infants at elevated likelihood for autism. During her fellowship, she will build on work pioneered by Prof. Grace Baranek to investigate the interrelationships between dyadic engagement and sensory responsivity patterns, representing the two core domains of autism, with the goal of informing early identification and intervention strategies.

Lakshyayog

Dr. Lakshyayog is a postdoctoral fellow at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), working on a British Academy-funded collaborative project between the University of Oxford and NLSIU. He obtained his undergraduate degree in geography from the University of Delhi in 2015, followed by a postgraduate degree in geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in 2017. He was awarded a PhD from JNU in May 2025. His doctoral research was funded by the Junior and Senior Research Fellowships from the University Grants Commission. Previously, he worked with development sector organizations such as the World Resources Institute India and ActionAid India.

Dr. Lakshyayog’s research interests lie at the intersections of sports and urban development in India, specifically examining the promotion of everyday physical activity and leisure in cities. With research articles and chapters published in reputed journals and edited volumes, he has presented his research work at several international conferences. In March 2025, he was selected as a Writing Urban India Fellow 3.0 of the Urban Studies Foundation, UK and NLSIU.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Lakshyayog will explore the ways in which cities in India and the United States use sport to reshape urban space, mobilize real estate investment, and instrumentalize global visibility. Through a comparative study of Delhi and Ahmedabad in India and Atlanta and Los Angeles in the US, Dr. Lakshyayog aims to examine the emerging phenomenon of sports cities.

Kakoli Das

Dr. Kakoli Das is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Vidyasagar University. She is a multidisciplinary researcher, academician, and human resource professional. Dr. Das completed her MPhil in 2014 from the Institute of Development Studies Kolkata and was awarded PhD in development studies in 2023 from the same institution. In March 2026, she completed a professional course in public policy at the Centre for Policy Research and Governance, New Delhi.

Dr. Das was a Visiting Scientist at the Population Studies Unit of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI Kolkata) and has also been associated with the World Health Organization. Her research interests lie primarily in demography and development studies, with a particular focus on fertility dynamics in developing countries, the behavioral economics of reproductive decision-making, and population policy. Her work has been published in reputable academic journals, featured in prominent media outlets, and presented at various academic platforms. She was awarded the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) Institutional Fellowship for her doctoral research and is also a recipient of the European Union’s MSCA Seal of Excellence (2025).

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Das is developing an innovative socio-cognitive framework to better understand the complex mechanisms of demographic transition in India and to identify key entry points for effective policy intervention. Through collaboration with US academics, her work aims to foster co-learning and contribute to the development of future-ready population strategies for India and beyond.

Hindol Chakraborty

Dr. Hindol Chakraborty is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Swami Vivekananda University, West Bengal. He earned his BA (Hons) in English from Narasinha Dutt College under University of Calcutta in 2010. He received a master’s degree in English literature from Aliah University, Kolkata in 2012. His PhD was awarded by Jharkhand Rai University, Ranchi in 2022.

Dr. Chakraborty’s primary research areas include the art and the sublime, memory studies, post-genocide literature and the Girardian theory of mimesis in Indian literature. He has published widely in various national and international journals and also contributed to several edited volumes published by renowned houses including Imprint, SLC India Publishers and Routledge. He is the translator of Rantidev Sengupta’s historical fiction Ishqnama. His research article on virtual reality literature and a co-edited volume on Eastern Himalayan literature will be published by Palgrave Macmillan and Routledge respectively.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Fellow at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University, Dr. Chakraborty is focusing on the transmission of the traumatic memory of the Armenian genocide across generations through the lens of postmemory, centering on the functionality of gendered postmemory among select Armenian-American and Armenian-Indian women writers. He aims to contribute to broader discussions on the representation of the American and Indian roles in nurturing the sentiment of the post-genocide Armenian diaspora. Dr. Chakraborty is also a President’s award winner for singing and composing ghazals and a harmonium exponent.

Haseena Naji

Dr. Haseena Naji is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Sciences and Languages at Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. In October 2023, she was awarded a PhD from the Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, for her thesis applying Vladimir Propp’s morphological framework alongside Ochs and Capps’ five-dimensional model of narrative to Kurichyan folksongs, demonstrating that indigenous oral narratives require culturally responsive analytical frameworks beyond universalist Western structural models.

Dr. Naji’s research interests lie at the intersection of structuralist narratology, indigenous narratives, and comparative folklore. Her work is grounded in sustained ethnographic fieldwork with the Kurichya tribe of Wayanad, Kerala, collecting, translating and interpreting their corpus of folksongs alongside the community’s broader ritual practices.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Elon University, Dr. Naji is conducting a comparative study of ritual speech among the Kurichya and the Gullah/Geechee of the southeastern United States. Both communities face pressures of ecological and cultural marginalization, making the comparison both theoretically significant and ethically urgent. The project tests whether a structuralist-performative framework, recalibrated to honor cultural specificity, can reveal how two distinct indigenous traditions encode memory, identity, and resilience through oral performance.

Diptarup Ghosh Dastidar

Dr. Diptarup Ghosh Dastidar earned his BA (Hons) in 2014 from Serampore College, affiliated with University of Calcutta, and completed his MA in 2016 at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi. In December 2023, he was awarded a PhD from BHU. Dr. Ghosh Dastidar was a research intern at National Institute of Technology, Trichy in July 2019, where he worked on graphic medicine.

Dr. Ghosh Dastidar’s research interests lie primarily in comics studies, spatiality, visual cultures, graphic medicine, ludology, and Indology. He has published several research articles in SCOPUS-indexed international journals such as Perspectives in Biology and Medicine (JHU Press), and The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics (Taylor & Francis). He has qualified for the CBSE-UGC NET examination, and was also awarded the Teach-for-BHU (TfB) Fellowship from August 2023 to July 2024. He worked as Assistant Professor at Amity University Chhattisgarh from 2020 to 2022.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Ghosh Dastidar is focusing on the nature and history of the American graphic novel with respect to the growth and development of the Indian counterpart, with special emphasis on community interactions and exploration of the American “comics world” (Beaty 2012). He is exploring the network of comics scholarship and practice in the USA and bridging it with the Indian comics network, while deliberating on establishing authority on the idea of the graphic novel as a genre.

Balasubramanian Geetha

Dr. B. Geetha is an Assistant Professor at the Manipal Institute of Liberal Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Bengaluru. She holds a PhD in Film Studies from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Her research interests include film history, stardom, comedy studies, film aesthetics, and archival studies within South Asian visual cultures. She was the recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship in Visual Arts at Michigan State University (2022–2023). She also received a travel grant from the UCLA Center for India and South Asia (2023) for her doctoral work on Tamil cinema.

Dr. Geetha’s academic publications have appeared in journals such as Celebrity Studies, South Asian Review, Senses of Cinema, Screen, and Journal of Cinema and Media Studies.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Geetha’s work engages with the physical modality of slapstick to theorize the performative possibilities of the comic body in Tamil cinema. This research finds its methodological grounding by drawing on conceptual tools from the fields of film studies and performance studies to examine concerns around embodied caste labor through the gestural registers of the comedian. Overall, the research excavates the comedic strand of thought within the historiography of Indian cinema by studying the aesthetico-ethical stakes of laughter, pain, and film form.

Dr. Anand

Dr. Anand is an online urban and community forestry consultant at Fair Forests Consulting LLC, Michigan, USA specializing in urban forestry, ecosystem services, and climate resilience. He earned his MSc in natural resource management and PhD in environmental sciences from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. His doctoral research focused on ecosystem services, carbon sequestration, and governance of urban green spaces.

Dr. Anand has worked with organizations including the USDA Forest Service and has extensive expertise in i-Tree Tools, GIS and urban ecological assessment. He has published in reputed national and international journals. He was honored with the 2025 i-Tree Innovation Award by the Urban and Community Forestry Society, USA.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr. Anand is collaborating on international comparative research on urban greening and large-scale tree planting initiatives. His work focuses on plantable urban space, governance, community engagement, and landscape preferences in urban forestry. Dr. Anand is also contributing as co-editor to an academic volume on urban greening.

Anup Dandapat

Prof. Anup Dandapat is Professor of Electronics and Communication Engineering and Dean (Academic Affairs) at the National Institute of Technology, Meghalaya, an Institute of National Importance under the Ministry of Education, Government of India. He brings extensive experience to academic leadership, research, and institutional development within India’s public higher education system. As Dean (Academic Affairs), he has led collaborative academic reforms aligned with India’s National Education Policy 2020, including curriculum modernization, implementation of outcome-based education, strengthening doctoral research frameworks, and expanding interdisciplinary programs. He has also advanced digital academic governance and quality assurance processes to enhance transparency and global engagement. Prof. Dandapat’s academic contributions have been recognized through several distinctions, including the Best Researcher Award (2016), the Leader of the Year Award (2015) from NIT Meghalaya, and the Young Faculty Research Fellowship from the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Government of India.