Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships Archives - Page 3 of 9

Priya Gagansingh Thakur

Ms. Priya Thakur is a Ph.D. research scholar at CSIR-Institute of Genomics and integrative Biology, New Delhi, working in the field of disease modelling and CRISPR-cas genome editing. She is working towards modelling Gaucher Disease- the most common lysosomal storage disorder. It is caused due to genetic mutations in the GBA gene and is also the most common genetic risk factor for Parkinson’s Disease. She is interested in understanding the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease using patient derived induced pluripotent stem cells. These cells can be differentiated into disease affected cell types and can recapitulate the disease. Through the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowship, she will work with field experts to overcome her limitations in achieving her research objectives.

Prior to joining IGIB, she worked as a project junior research fellow, to understand the role of histone proteins in breast cancer, under Dr. Sanjay Gupta at the Tata Memorial Centre-Advanced Centre for Treatment Research and Education in Cancer(TMC-ACTREC), Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra. She received her master’s degree in Medical Biotechnology from M.S University, Baroda, Gujarat, and her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Mumbai University, Maharashtra. Apart from working in the lab, she enjoys watching movies, listening to music, and participating in adventure sports.

Arya Alvernas

Mr. Rishiraj Adhikary is a Ph.D. student at the Computer Science Department, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat. His research interest is in human-computer interaction, ubiquitous computing and sensor-enabled embedded systems that can impact healthcare delivery or pave the way towards making healthcare more accessible. His current research focuses on retrofitting consumer-grade masks with sensors to detect lung health. His prior work has also studied the perception of people around air pollution to aid in risk communication.

During his Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, he will study how contexts like human activity can be leveraged to implement opportunistic sensing techniques in smart masks. Successful research on context sensing will pave the way to preserve privacy and reduce the energy consumption of a smart face mask.

Mr. Adhikary received his B.Tech. (Electronics and Communication Engineering) from Gauhati University, Assam, where his capstone project was recognised as the best project. He has successfully conducted events targeting school children in the past where he has demonstrated prototyping tools to help students understand the basics of electronics. He also takes a keen interest in teaching undergraduate and school students.

Rishiraj Adhikary

Anna Lynn Tom

Anna Lynn Tom is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Comparative Literature and India Studies at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. She received the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) doctoral research fellowship in 2022 for her study on interventional feminist practices in contemporary visual art in India. Previously, she was as an assistant professor in English at St. Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru. She completed her master’s from EFL University, Hyderabad, focusing in Indian and world literatures.

Anna has published critical writing on gender, art and culture on Indian online platforms such as The Chakkar, Live Wire, Catharsis, Articulate, and ASAP Art Connect. She has also published book chapters and academic papers in research journals. She has presented her ongoing work on the presence of women and queer artists in the contemporary Indian art scene at national and international conferences. Through her doctoral research, Anna aims to understand different methods of reading feminist art of the Indian contemporary through bodily mediated encounters within the decolonial avant-garde.

As a Fulbright Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, Anna is conducting a comparative analysis of understanding feminist interventions during the period of the women’s movements (roughly 1960 – 1990) in the U.S. and India through an exploration of the Miriam Schapiro Archives on Women Artists. Anna is an avid consumer of fiction and cinema. She also practices experimental forms of writing and photography.

Asad Tariq

Asad Tariq is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He completed his MA in economics with distinction from Jamia Millia Islamia, and BA from the University of Allahabad. His research interest lies at the intersection of development economics, politics, and religion. His work aims to document the discrimination against marginalised groups in India and investigate possible policy measures that aid their upliftment and development.

During his Ph.D., he has been awarded the Commonwealth Split-Site Scholarship in 2023 which sponsored 12 months of research at the Imperial College London. He is also a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship by the University Grants Commission, India. He has presented his work at multiple national and international conferences. He has also been a part of multiple research projects under the Department of Science and Technology (Government of India) and Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research among others.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brown University, Providence, RI, Asad is evaluating the influence of Members of Legislative Assembly from religious minority backgrounds in India on the provision of public goods targeted towards minorities. He also hopes to compile a collection of essays employing econometric methods to illuminate the challenges faced by Indian marginalized groups. When he is not crunching numbers using econometric models, Asad can be found at a picket, savouring nihari-paya in the labyrinthine alleys of Purani Dilli and Okhla, or reading Allama Iqbal’s poetry.

Apoorva Singh

Apoorva Singh is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. His doctoral thesis focuses on understanding the charge transport and degradation mechanisms in perovskite based solar cells and devices incorporating device fabrication and advanced electrical, optical and materials characterizations. Apoorva has published academic papers and presented his work at various national and international conferences. He has collaborated with prominent international research groups and research facilities including ones at the University of Oxford and Soleil French-National Synchrotron Facility.

Apoorva holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from MJP Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, and a master’s degree in engineering by research from the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR), Bengaluru. After completing his master’s from JNCASR and prior to joining the Ph.D. program at IISc, Apoorva served as a senior project associate at the National Centre for Flexible Electronics, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, Apoorva is studying perovskite solar cells, investigating the evolution in defects and recombination mechanisms at different stages of degradation through spectroscopic procedures. The insights gained from his research will contribute to achieving optimal device performance and stability in the field. Apoorva actively organizes and takes on leadership roles in various academic and cultural activities. He is a music enthusiast, with skill in live mixing, and he also enjoys reading, playing chess, and exploring new places.

Harish Sankar Aghila

Harish S A is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching assistant at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. The broader domains encompassing his research interests include networks, systems, and security. His current research explores the security implications of in-network systems that leverage cutting-edge technologies like software-defined networks and programmable data planes.

Harish is a recipient of the prestigious Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship (PMRF) awarded by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. As a part of his doctoral research, he actively engaged in a security project alongside ASEAN countries and participated in their student exchange program. He published research papers and presented his work at reputed international venues. Additionally, he has received the notable SIGCOMM travel grant award, among many others.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the National Institute of Technology Puducherry, during which time he interned with the UMR TETIS Joint Research Unit in Montpellier, France. He holds a master’s degree in computer engineering (cyber security) from the National Institute of Technology Kurukshetra.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Texas, Austin, TX, Harish is examining to secure data-driven, in-network systems built on high-speed programmable data planes against adversarial inputs. His vision is to bolster the resilience of next-generation computer networks against security threats. Harish teaches undergraduate students about network security. He enjoys road trips and chess.

Pavithra Venkataraman

Ms. Pavithra Venkataraman is a Ph.D. student at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. Her research is in the area of evolutionary biology. Specifically, she uses experimental methods to understand the evolution of proteins, and theoretical methods to understand the evolution of metabolic cooperation and sympatric speciation in a population.

Ms. Venkataraman completed her bachelor’s in chemical engineering from M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bengaluru. In 2020, she was awarded the Best Outgoing Chemical Engineering Student by the Bangalore Chapter of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers. She enjoys exploring new places, cuisines and cultures. She also likes learning new languages.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, she will work with Prof. Sergey Kryazhimskiy to characterize the variation in the local structure of fitness landscapes to assess the predictability of evolution. This work is important to build our understanding of the process of evolution as a whole and has implications for pathogen evolution and human health.

Divya Swaminathan

Ms. Divya Swaminathan is a Ph.D. scholar at the Infant – Toddler Language Development and Intervention Lab, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru. Before joining NIMHANS for her Ph.D., Ms. Swaminathan worked at the St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru, where she worked on developing an early screening tool for identifying increased likelihood for autism (HL-ASD) in infants between 9-18 months. She is a passionate clinician – researcher with expertise in detection of and intervention for autism.

Ms. Swaminathan’s current area of research focuses on early caregiver speech (CGS) and its impact on the development of communication and language skills in infants at HL-ASD. She is using automatic speech recognition (ASR) models to evaluate early CGS.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Swaminathan has joined Dr. Marisa Casillas’s lab. Ms. Swaminathan is working on improving existing ASR models that are sensitive to a multilingual setup. More accurate ASR models will help automatize amount of CGS that otherwise require laborious hand annotation

Devika Singh Shekhawat

Ms. Devika Singh Shekhawat is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. She has a master’s in sociology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests lies at the intersection of gender and labor studies, public health, migration studies, and developmental issues.

Ms. Shekhawat is a writer, educator and research scholar. She has written on the history and memory of migration of tea plantation workers of Assam for Zubaan Publication and co-authored a book chapter with the Programme of Social Actions – The Research Collective on the Ecological Crisis of Shrimp Aquaculture and discourses of migration and infiltration in Coastal Odisha. She has been a part of multiple projects that study rural public healthcare infrastructure, ecological conservation and labor relations in northeast India. Her research on the work of ASHA workers in tea plantations during the pandemic has been published as a book chapter with Northeast Social Research Centre and Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group.

Her Ph.D. research project explores the relationship between health and labor that manifests itself in the body of the worker and their everyday life. She engages with the nature of work, the production process that affects the health of the worker and the conditions for ailments and disease created for the worker in the tea plantations of Assam. Through a study of labor relations and structural conditions of work, her research attempts to explore how health and labor operate in tea plantations.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Ms. Shekhawat is working with Dr. Sarah Besky at the South Asia Program at Cornell University to carry forward her Ph.D. research work. She is focusing on how conditions of structural reproduction of ill-health are produced and understood within the plantation economy.