Fulbright-Nehru Grant Category India: Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellowships

Vaivab Das

Vaivab Das is a UGC Senior Research Fellow in sociology at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi. They have interdisciplinary training in Human Rights Law (NLSIU, Bangalore), Women and Gender Studies (TISS, Hyderabad), and English Literature (Ravenshaw University). They are interested in looking at the role of data cultures, law, gender and sexuality in the making of histories and policies for LGBTQIA+ persons in India.

They are an activist academician, who firmly believes that their academic goals are interwoven with fostering social change. They have worked towards the recognition of diverse gender and sexual minorities as protected categories, building gender-affirming infrastructures, and creating community spaces for LGBTQIA+ sensitization and awareness in various institutions. Recently, they worked on a writ petition for the horizontal reservation for transgender persons in public education and employment opportunities submitted to the Telangana High Court. In the past, Vaivab has worked as a technical expert on projects on gender-based violence, inclusive and accessible quality education, state welfare programs and livelihood schemes for the World Bank, Oxford Policy Management, Stanford University, and the Government of Odisha.

Vaivab’s Ph.D. project is an anthropological exploration of the bureaucratic, institutional, and socio-cultural barriers that impact the participation of transgender persons in democratic processes like elections in India. The project examines the conflict between law (legal rationality) and identity in the experiences of citizenship, along with the historical trajectories and political technologies that underpin the politics of the body and the body of politics in plural democracies.

During Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Vaivab is focusing on drawing a comparative understanding of how transgender persons navigate citizenship and elections as voters, candidates, and political representatives in the USA and in India.

Koushikey Chhapariya

Ms. Koushikey Chhapariya is a doctoral student at the Satellite Image Processing Lab, Centre of Studies in Resources Engineering (CSRE), IIT Bombay, Mumbai. She is working on an object-oriented deep CNN-based model for detecting selective features on hyperspectral images as part of her Ph.D. research. She is also a recipient of the Indo-French Raman-Charpak Fellowship 2022. She joined LISTIC Lab, Université Savoie Mont Blanc as a visiting research scholar in France to conduct a part of her Ph.D. thesis work. There she worked on a multi-task deep learning model for hyperspectral data for six months.

Ms. Chhapariya received the Prime Minister Research Fellowship in May 2021 under the lateral entry scheme. She completed her Master of Technology (M.Tech) from the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), ISRO, Dehradun. As part of her master’s project, she developed a kernel-based Modified Possibilistic c-Means (MPCM) algorithm in the fuzzy-logic-based domain to handle non-linearity in data. She was also an intern with the Indian Institute of Human Settlement (IIHS), Bengaluru, where she worked on a data management portal, administrating metadata and web-portal development. Her research interest lies in the processing and analysis of satellite images, such as hyperspectral, multispectral, and thermal data. She loves to travel, explore new places, and read in her free time.

During her Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellowship, Ms. Chhapariya is focusing on developing a deep learning-based object detection and feature extraction model for hyperspectral satellite image analysis.

Sreerupa Bhattacharya

Ms. Sreerupa Bhattacharya is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, where she examines the works of women photographers in twentieth-century India. By tracing a genealogy of women’s photographic practices, her Ph.D. seeks to explore hitherto obscured archives in order to engender the history of photography in India as well as provide fresh insights into the gendered lifeworlds of women in the twentieth century. Her research interests include visual culture, gender studies, technology studies and South Asian history.

Ms. Bhattacharya completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in English literature at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, where she was awarded the Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (Sylff) for an independent research project on the Jewish community of Kolkata. She was a Young India Fellow at Ashoka University, where she received a postgraduate diploma in liberal studies. She also worked as Teaching Assistant at Ashoka University and IIT Bombay for a range of courses on gender and sexuality, film studies, literary culture and language training.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, she is undertaking archival research, gaining interdisciplinary methodological insights into the study of visual culture, and engaging with a global community of scholars and curators working on gender and photography.

Porkizhi Arjunan

Ms. Porkizhi Arjunan is a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Stem Cell Research, Vellore, Tamil Nadu. Her doctoral research focuses on targeted non-viral vector-based gene therapy for hemophilia A and B (HA and HB) disorders, and her goal is to reduce bleeding in hemophilia patients while avoiding additional complications. During her Ph.D., she has also worked on other projects, such as making innovative nano-lithocholic lipidoids—a potential class of therapeutics for treating psoriasis. Furthermore, using novel liposomes, she assisted in the production of SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirions during the Covid-19 outbreak and contributed to the finding that Omicron infection increases IgG binding to spike protein of predecessor variants. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed international journals and has been presented at several national and international conferences.

Ms. Arjunan holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in biotechnology from Pondicherry University, Puducherry and Bharathidasan University, Tamil Nadu respectively. She also holds a diploma in computer applications and training. In addition to her work, she has a strong interest in social work, and likes traveling and meeting people from different cultures.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow, Ms. Arjunan is exploring the potential reach of the proposed “Development of Lipid Nanoparticle guided chemically modified Factor FVIII mRNA/NE-DNA Nucleic Acid Therapeutics for Hemophilia A.”

Kirti Saluja

Kirti Saluja is a Ph.D. candidate at the National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), Haryana. Her Ph.D. research focuses on investigating the interaction between the heart and the brain in aging individuals and those with epilepsy, involving the utilization of cognitive experiments, multimodal neuroimaging, and a data-driven approach. She has presented her research at various national and international conferences and workshops.

Before pursuing her Ph.D., Kirti completed her BSc in biochemistry from the University of Delhi, and MSc in neuroscience from the National Brain Research Centre. During this period, she actively participated in an innovation project led by the University of Delhi in collaboration with IGIB, focusing on utilizing zebrafish as a biosensor for assessing the water quality of the river Yamuna in the Delhi-NCT region. Additionally, she contributed as a teaching assistant at the Neuromatch Academy for their computational neuroscience course.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, Kirti will is collaborating with Dr. Mohammad Dastjerdi, aiming to elucidate the connectivity between the heart and the brain in epileptic patients using stereo encephalography (sEEG) as the neuroimaging technique. This endeavor is expected to aid in comprehending mechanisms underlying the development of cognitive and/ or cardiovascular comorbidities in epileptic patients, potentially opening avenues for utilizing cardiac signals in predicting seizure onset. Kirti enjoys hiking, trekking, creating science-related comics, and engaging with diverse individuals.

Saptarshi Saha

Saptarshi Saha is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His doctoral research is focused on integrating causality into deep learning frameworks to enhance their utility. Beyond his immediate thesis goals, Saptarshi envisions a broader research trajectory aimed at utilizing deep learning for a deeper understanding of cause-and-effect relationships. His aim is to address various challenges such as improving the robustness, explainability, and interpretability of models, addressing issues with limited control over generative models, enhancing generalization performance under varying data distributions, dealing with learning using limited labelled data, promoting fairness in decision-making systems, and more. Saptarshi’s scholarly contributions extend to renowned journals such as TMLR and prominent conferences like ICLR. He has showcased his work at various research fora, such as Amazon Research Day 2023 and the Machine Learning Summer School in Okinawa, 2024.

Saptarshi holds a BS-MS dual degree in mathematics from IISER Kolkata. Throughout his BS-MS studies (2015–2020), he was a recipient of the INSPIRE fellowship from DST, Government of India.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Saptarshi is trying to utilize causal knowledge and principles to assess data quality and make informed decisions (in the context of learning with not enough data) regarding samples that need to be labelled (from the large unlabelled dataset) rather than selecting them randomly. He is primarily working on the challenge of efficiently selecting the most relevant samples for labelling while considering budget constraints. This challenge holds excellent relevance not only in academic research but also within the AI industry. Saptarshi is an avid nature photographer and finds solace in the wilderness. His interests extend to culinary adventures, globetrotting, and engaging with diverse cultures. His leisure activities also include playing football and cricket.

Wasim Niyaz Munshi

Wasim Niyaz Munshi obtained his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, in 2021. He then joined the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras to pursue an integrated MS + Ph.D. in civil engineering. His doctoral thesis focuses on developing a robust phase-field model for fracture propagation. The developed model will leverage parallel computing on distributed memory environments and adaptive mesh refinement to offset the high computational costs.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Colorado State University, Boulder, CO, Wasim is addressing the key limitation of the phase-field method, which is its high computational cost. The eventual outcome of this research will result in a unique 3D subsurface fracture propagation capability that addresses a key bottleneck for several industrial applications such as geothermal energy, shale gas exploration, and composites. Wasim has presented his initial work at reputed conferences like CFRAC 2023 and ISTAM 2023. In addition to several high-impact research publications, this research will also facilitate long-term collaborations between the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the host laboratory in the U.S. in a strategic area of national importance for both nations.

Coming from the picturesque valley of Kashmir, Wasim has a deep appreciation for nature. He loves spending time in nature and is particularly enthusiastic about hiking and camping. He enjoys travelling to new places and is very keen to learn about different cultures.

Sadaf Nausheen

Sadaf Nausheen is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Liberal Arts at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad. She completed her MA in women’s studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and BA in political science from the University of Delhi. Such training has given her an interdisciplinary background which is reflected in her doctoral work that sits at the intersection of gender studies and urban studies. As an ethnographic study, her research focuses on narratives of Muslim women in understanding gendered experience of urban public space.

Nausheen has presented her work at several national and international conferences. She has also co-authored and published in a peer-reviewed international journal and other online fora. Sadaf has been a co-recipient of the Centenary Decade Undergraduate Research Grant funded by Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. Additionally, she undertook funded research as part of the Sponsored Studies Project by the Indian Association for Women’s Studies that allowed her to imbibe practices of reflexivity and empathy in doing qualitative work. Her doctoral research looks at the experiences of urban spaces by analysing the exclusions, claim making processes, and belongingness of Muslim women in Hyderabad, India. Focusing on how Muslim women navigate their access to public space in the city, the research attempts to mainstream marginalised voices in theorising women’s experiences. Furthermore, it takes into account the differences within the category of the ‘Muslim woman’ in order to bring out a heterogeneous understanding of the same.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, Sadaf is working on the methodological and analytical aspects of her Ph.D. project, while analysing the scope of intersectionality through various frameworks of study.

Sayari Misra

Sayari Misra is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), IIT Jammu. She completed her graduation in microbiology from Scottish Church College, Kolkata. After that, she did her post-graduation in social work (MSW) from the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Durgapur and was awarded the institute gold medal for her academic performance. She has worked with Dr. S. Y. Quraishi (former Chief Election Commissioner of India) on his book on family planning titled The Population Myth as his research associate. Her research interests include themes of social stratification and inequality, social networks, and access to water and sanitation. Her ongoing doctoral study primarily focuses on mapping the accessibility to water resources and the social network structure of the rural communities of the Indian Sundarbans.

During extensive field visits in various remote locations in West Bengal, Sayari was drawn to the complex problem of climate-induced water-resource stress and associated vulnerabilities in resource-dependent communities like the Sundarbans. One key insight gained from her research is the pivotal role of social networks in influencing the accessibility of resources and mitigating vulnerabilities, especially among marginalized groups. However, the mechanism and importance of these social relationships in the context of water resource stress remain elusive.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Sayari is aiming to bridge the aforementioned knowledge gap by elucidating the nuanced interplay between social networks and water resource stress, particularly within marginalized communities.

Nilotpal Majumder

Nilotpal Majumder is a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He is currently designing a biomimetic chemically modified silk fibroin gelatin bioink for 3D bioprinting of cartilage tissue. His doctoral thesis primarily focuses on modulating the associated chondrogenic signalling pathways using various small-molecule modulators to develop phenotypically stable articular cartilage grafts. He has publications in reputed journals like Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Healthcare Materials, and ACS Applied Material & Interfaces.

Nilotpal holds a BTech-MTech dual degree in biotechnology from KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. He worked on a project funded by the government of India (BIRAC) as a project engineer to develop an automated electromagnetic wave-based tissue processing device.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research fellow at Tufts University, Medfor, MA, Nilotpal is exploring various external cues (microgravity, magnetism) to induce cellular assembly within the 3D bio-printed constructs. The main objective of his research will be to develop a 3D bio-printed macroscale organoid that can closely recapitulate the native human tissue microarchitecture and physiology. In his free time, he enjoys reading non-fiction, watching sci-fi movies and television series, and exploring historical places.