Other Fulbright Grants India: Fulbright-Kalam Fellowships for Academic and Professional Excellence (Research - Flex)

K.R.S. Preethi Meher

Dr. K.R.S. Preethi Meher is Assistant Professor at the Department of Materials Science, School of Technology, Central University of Tamil Nadu, Thiruvarur, Tamil Nadu. She completed her Ph.D. at the Materials Research Center, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru in 2012.

Dr. Meher was the Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window WILLPower (EMECW) visiting research fellow in 2010 at the Laboratoire Structures, Properties and Modeling of Solids Laboratory (SPMS), UMR CNRS 8580, CentraleSupélec, Paris-Saclay University, France. She was also a CNRS postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratorie CRISMAT, Caen from 2013-2014 and later served as Research Associate at the Materials Science Group, Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu. She has been awarded UGC-DAE-CSR Collaborative Research Scheme for 2022-2025 and is a life member of the Materials Research Society of India (MRSI).

Dr. Meher’s research laboratory at CUTN focuses on the development of new multifunctional materials and electroceramics for energy production, harvesting, and sensing applications. Currently, she works on synthesis, structural and property correlations in novel perovskite halide compositions for photovoltaics. She has published 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and presented several papers at international and national conferences and workshops apart from serving as an invited speaker at various Faculty development programs.

As a Fulbright-Kalam Climate scholar for Academic and Professional Excellence, Dr. Meher is studying novel layered perovskite halide compositions that exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties coupled with very good stability for an enhanced lifetime of the photovoltaic device.

Vasant Matsagar

Prof. Vasant Matsagar is Professor and Dogra Chair at the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, New Delhi. He obtained his Ph.D. from IIT Bombay in structural engineering.

Prof. Matsagar is serving on editorial boards of reputed journals in various capacities: Editor-in-Chief of Indian Society of Earthquake Technology (ISET Journal) and the Indian Concrete Journal; Associate Editor for “Computational Methods in Structural Engineering” section” of Frontiers in Built Environment; and an editorial board member of Bulletin of New Zealand Society for Earthquake Engineering, Proceedings of Institution of Civil Engineers: Structures and Buildings, Advances in Civil Engineering, International Journal of Protective Structures, and the journal Architecture, Structures, and Construction. Prof. Matsagar is Founding Director and Fellow of Council of Vibration Specialists, and has received fellowships from Humboldt Foundation, Erasmus, ASEM-DUO India, FEIT Visiting Academic among others. He is also a DAAD (India) Research Ambassador and an elected fellow of the Indian National Academy for Engineering (INAE), the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI), the Institution of Engineers (India), and the Indian Society of Earthquake Technology.

Prof. Matsagar is interested in multi-hazard protection of structures using advanced engineered materials. During his Fulbright-Kalam Climate fellowship for Academic and Professional Excellence at Michigan State University (MSU), Prof. Matsagar is developing a technology for manufacturing biocomposites from agro-residues for gainfully using them in built infrastructure at large-scale as construction materials. By developing a suitable agriculture waste management scheme and implementing it in practice and contributing to sustainability through decarbonized circular economy, this collaborative research work strives for the development of hazard resilient infrastructure in modern cities and towns in both the U.S. and India.