Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence Program Archives

Satya Sundar Sethy

Dr. Satya Sundar Sethy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India. He has served at Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) as Assistant Professor in the Staff Training and Research Institute of Distance Education (STRIDE), New Delhi. He is the recipient of the prestigious Young Philosopher Award 2017, conferred by the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, Ministry of Education, Government of India. He has published several papers in prestigious journals and contributed chapters to the edited books. His publications include the books Introduction to Logic and Logical Discourse (2021), Higher Education and Professional Ethics: Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers (edited, 2018), Assessment of Learner Performance (With Mishra, S., 2018), Meaning and Language (2016), Contemporary Ethical Issues in Engineering (edited, 2015), and Indian Philosophy: Orthodox Systems (2010). His current research interests are consciousness studies; Aristotelian logic; analytic philosophy; Indian philosophy; professional ethics, especially academic ethics and engineering ethics; engineering education; and assessment and evaluation in higher education.

During his Fulbright grant, Dr. Sethy is engaged with teaching, research, and public lecture activities at the host institution and several universities in Utah, USA. He is involved in Philosophy course curriculum design and teaching a few courses to Humanities students. He is delivering guest lectures on ‘Engineering Ethics’ and ‘Engineering Education’ issues to engineering and science students, special lectures on ‘Academic Ethics’, and ‘Assessment and Evaluation Practices in Higher Education’ in the teacher training program, and a few public lectures on ‘Role and Responsibilities of Higher Education Teachers in Contemporary Times’, and ‘Oriental Philosophy and Engineering in India’.

Monica Singhania

Monica Singhania is Professor of Accounting & Sustainability at Faculty of Management Studies (FMS), University of Delhi in India. She is a graduate from Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), post-graduate from Delhi School of Economics (DSE), University of Delhi, India and a Fellow Member (FCA) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. She has the distinction of securing All India Merit Rank 22nd in chartered accountancy examinations. She has been awarded Ph.D. in accounting & corporate finance from the University of Delhi. She is the author of many books and several research papers published in leading international journals.

With over 24 years of teaching and research experience, Monica has written more than 20 international business cases and has spoken at over 150 national and international conferences, workshop, symposiums, faculty development programs and corporate training events. She teaches accounting and sustainability to MBA students at FMS. Her current research interests include accounting, finance, and sustainability. She can be reached at monica@fms.edu

During her Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence grant, Dr. Singhania is teaching Managerial Accounting to MBA students at Carolina University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA in fall term of 2022-23 academic year. Additionally, she will also be associated with host institution’s business school faculty to enable sustained exchange of academic and research ideas. Monica will deliver invited sessions at several institutions and engage in community driven initiatives as well.

Vandana Saxena

Dr. vandana saxena is an evolving academician in the field of Diversity and Inclusion for the last three decades. She is a Professor of Education at CIE, Delhi University. She taught for four years in a school as a science teacher before joining CIE in November 1997. In her academic persuasion to cultivate a democratic educational environment, she is engaged with teaching, training, research & consultations focusing upon developing research-based thought-provoking pedagogical designs addressing issues of Diversity and Inclusion across all ages. She has worked on multiple projects & assignments with MHRD (India), World Bank, UGC, NCERT, NCTE, NIOS, RCI, and several civil society initiatives. She has addressed and written in, many national and international forums. Her prime contemplation is on Conceptualizing Research in Education, Driving Research Questions, Academic Writing, and Ethics in Research, for which she is conducting workshops with researchers in various universities at the Pan-India level.

She has been diligently promoting the case of equal opportunities for all, symbolized by the conscious use of lowercasing for the writing of her name.

As an essential part of the Fulbright grant, Dr. saxena will be designing the course curriculum and teaching in the Departments of Education at Mississippi Valley State University (MS). She will be engaged in field visits and community outreach programs. Along with academic persuasions, she plans to create opportunities for cultural exchange with students and faculty members of MVSU. Placed at the center of the civil rights movement, she is hopeful of developing deeper theoretical insights furthering the process of conceptualizing perspectives in diversity and inclusion.

Geeta Nair

Dr. Geeta Nair is Professor and Head of Department of Business Economics at H. R. College of Commerce & Economics for over 3 decades. She is also Director of Research Initiatives, Chair of Board of Studies in Business Economics, HSNC University, and member of Board of Studies in Business Economics at University of Mumbai. She is the Centre Head of PhD Centre in Business Economics and has successfully guided 5 students, with 7 new students registered under her.

She has been awarded 5 Minor Research Projects of the University of Mumbai, 1 Major Research Project of the UGC, 2 Post-doctoral Indo-French collaborative research projects jointly by FMSH, Paris and the ICSSR & UGC, Delhi. She has been invited to several prestigious international conferences at the London School of Economics, UNESCO, SUNY-Cortland, Salzburg Resilience & Decent Work Conference; and has over 100 reputed publications with 4 books published by Palgrave Macmillan, UK. She is also listed in the ‘Marquis Who’s Who’ list in Economics.

During her Scholar-in-Residence Program Fulbright Fellowship for 4 months at New Jersey City University, she will start a new course on the Indian Economy and enrich the existing Economics syllabi by covering the developing country’s perspective. She will also conduct research in the area of “Cost-Benefit Analysis of Online Learning in Higher Education in the US- Learning Lessons for India”.

Kalpana Hulluru

Dr. Kalpana Hulluru is a Professor in the Department of English, Pondicherry University (PU), Puducherry, India. She strongly believes that literature provides critical thinking skills that will help students/scholars to live life meaningfully. Her strengths are strategic approaches to teaching mixed groups of students and innovative teaching methods. She has successfully completed three research projects with an ongoing SPARC project. She has many awards and fellowships to her credit. A few notable ones are the USA’s ‘Study of Institutions Award’ (2007) and the SICI’s ‘Faculty Mobility Grant’ (2016). She was an invited keynote speaker for the Open National Science Day (2018) at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. She has to her credit several publications and has contributed a chapter on the Tamil language Classic, Silappadikaram to A Companion to World Literature (Wiley, 2019). She is an able research guide and is recognized as an outstanding teacher at her institution.

At Metropolitan State University, Denver, CO, Kalpana, besides teaching upper-division Literature courses, would offer courses on Women’s Writing and Feminism that would be cross-listed with the university’s Gender Institute. As part of the outreach, she would be delivering the annual Gandhi Memorial Lecture sponsored by Denver Sister Cities International and also interact with high school students at the Denver Centre for International Studies. Further to teaching and outreach programs, she intends to research Asian American Children’s literature concerning gender. By the end of her stay, she hopes to develop an MoU between the universities to link online courses, foster student-scholar exchanges and initiate collaborative research.

Pawan Kumar Sharma

Dr. Pawan Sharma is a professor of chemistry at the Central University of Haryana, Mahendergarh. Previously, he was a professor of chemistry, dean of research & development, and dean of students’ welfare at Kurukshetra University, Haryana. He is passionate about teaching chemistry, and believes chemistry is not simply a body of knowledge but also a way of thinking.

Dr. Sharma has visited six continents and many countries, including the U.S. on a Fulbright-Nehru International Education Administrators Seminar grant (2019). He is a recipient of the prestigious Srinivasa Ramanujan Birth Centenary Award gold medal (2018-2019) by the Indian Science Congress Association. He also received a bronze medal (2018) from the Chemical Research Society of India. He has over 130 research publications in journals of international repute and has also been granted patents.

In his ten months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, Dr. Sharma will be teaching one course per semester, bringing diversity to the curriculum in terms of perspectives in teaching and cross-cultural communication. He will deliver public lectures to share with the campus and the community his experience of going to the Antarctic region, highlighting the implications of the formation of an ozone hole over Antarctica. He also hopes to engage with secondary school students in the area for ‘Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE)’. He aspires to strengthen the ties between Wesleyan University and higher education institutions in India.

Balasubramani Karuppusamy

Dr. Balasubramani Karuppusamy is an associate professor in the Department of Geography at the Central University of Tamil Nadu (CUTN). He did his Master’s and PhD from Madurai Kamaraj University. His doctoral thesis offers important insights into the potential of geospatial technologies in preparing sustainable agricultural development plans. Before joining CUTN in 2017, Dr. Balasubramani worked at Madurai Kamaraj University (2009-2011), and Bharathidasan University (2011-2017). He was also a visiting researcher at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology in 2019. His interdisciplinary research extensively uses geospatial technologies.

Dr. Balasubramani has received research grants from several bodies such as DST, SERB, ICMR, ICSSR and UGC. He has published over 50 research articles in reputed journals on remote sensing, earth science, and public health. He is a recipient of the Young Geographer award by the National Association of Geographers, India (NAGI) and the Young Scientist fellowship by TNSCST (Government of Tamil Nadu).

In his ten months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC, Dr. Balasubramani will teach a course on the principles of remote sensing. Additionally, he will mentor student-led projects, and work with the sustainability group of the university on geospatial technologies in agriculture. He will also deliver a series of lectures in various departments of the university and other local institutions and interact with students on the effective utilization of geospatial techniques for sustainable agriculture.

Manoj Kapil

Prof. Manoj Kapil serves as the dean and principal at the Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. With an illustrious academic career spanning over nineteen years in the realm of computer science and engineering, he has authored several books for undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Dr. Kapil also has to his credit numerous international publications in esteemed journals such as IEEE Xplore and Springer. He has chaired sessions at several international conferences and has received a letter of appreciation from the Hon’ble Governor of Uttar Pradesh for his contribution to the field of computer science and engineering. Dr. Kapil has delivered lectures on cyber security and ethical hacking and guided many PhD scholars. He has also advised several state departments on various criminal cases in his capacity as expert consultant. His core domains of work are automata, web technology, security & cryptography.

In his nine months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at Huston-Tillotson University, Austin, TX, Dr. Kapil will teach particular courses, and also assist in curriculum development, leveraging his expertise in computer science and engineering to deliver high-quality education and ensuring that students are well-equipped for future challenges in these fields.

Snehal Donde

Dr. Snehal Donde is the dean of administrative affairs at the Bhaktivedanta Research Centre, University of Mumbai, located at Govardhan Ecovillage (GEV), Palghar, Maharashtra. She is also the chief research officer of GEV, which has been awarded a United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) award in 2017. She has more than three decades of administrative, teaching, and research experience. She holds a double PhD in zoology and management studies and has successfully guided nine PhD students.

Dr. Donde has received several research grants for projects including one on Ganga River pollution, erosion and sedimentation studies. She has chaired sessions at many prestigious international conferences and has over 80 peer-reviewed research publications to her credit, including nine books. She received the Green Crusader award from the UNEP and India’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change. She is a member of the advisory council of People’s World Commission on Droughts and Floods, Ulrika, Sweden.

In her four months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the City University of New York’s Bronx Community College, Bronx, NY, Dr. Donde will teach courses on environmental science in the Departments of Chemistry, Earth Science and Environmental Sciences. She will also work with the Department of History, particularly with the faculty offering courses on human geography, and provide students with newer perspectives on rural India. She will conduct collective social learning workshops, and seminars on various sustainability initiatives centered around water quality and scarcity, rural development, and climate change resilience.

Sumangala Damodaran

Sumangala Damodaran is a professor of development studies, economics, and popular music studies, with an academic career spanning more than three decades. She has taught for a long time in Lady Shri Ram College, University of Delhi, and Ambedkar University Delhi. She is now at the Institute of Human Development, New Delhi. She is also a visiting professor at Ashoka University, Haryana.

Prof. Damodaran’s areas of work include industrial organization, labour and the informal sector, global value chains, and gender. She has also researched extensively on the relationship between society and music and produced several music albums. As an academician and performing musician, she has been the recipient of many prestigious grants from India and abroad. She has collaborated with scholars and performers from different countries on academic research and poetry-music performances. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

In her six months as Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, Prof. Damodaran will be engaged in teaching two undergraduate courses in the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies Department, working with colleagues in developing course modules, giving lecture-demonstrations around her work in music, and engaging with community organizations such as Ragamala, a music organization in Seattle, for conducting poetry, music and storytelling sessions.