Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowships Archives - Page 6 of 8

Rahul Kumar

Dr. Rahul Kumar is currently a postdoctoral F ellow at the Center for Geometry and Physics, Institute for Basic Science, POSTECH, South Korea. He obtained his BSc from B S A C ollege, Mathura, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, and his MSc from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He then completed his PhD in October 2020 from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar under the supervision of Prof. Atul Dixit. His research interests are in analytic number theory, special functions, and the theory of partitions. The work of Ramanujan also influences Dr. Kumar’s research. Over the years, he has worked on various topics such as the Lambert series, zeros and special values of certain L-functions, and the theory of zeta and Bessel functions arising from modular relations, etc. He has published several research papers in reputed international journals. He has qualified for IIT-JAM, CSIR-NET, and GATE examinations. Recently, he was selected for the NBHM postdoctoral F ellowship.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow , Dr. Kumar will be joining the Department of Mathematics, Penn State University, University Park, USA. The study of Selberg L-functions has been of great interest to mathematicians since Selberg introduced them. During his stint, Dr. Kumar will also study the theory of these L-functions apart from developing the theory of generalized Hurwitz zeta and polylogarithm functions. The latter two functions have appeared in his (and others) recent works on modular relations and Herglotz functions.

Debanjan Konar

Dr. Debanjan Konar earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) from the University of Burdwan , in 2010, an MTech in CSE from the National Institute of Technical Teachers’ Training and Research (NITTTR), Kolkata , in 2012, and a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in New Delhi , in 2021. He is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Germany. Prior to this, Dr. Konar served as an Assistant Professor at Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology, Sikkim , and SRM University-AP, Andhra Pradesh . His research interests include quantum machine learning (QML), hybrid classical-quantum neural networks, deep learning, and computer vision. He has authored several papers in prestigious computer science journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, and internationally renowned books. Dr. Konar received a National Scholarship in 2001 and a GATE Postgraduate Fellowship in 2010. He is an IEEE senior member and an ACM member. He also serves as an editor and a reviewer for several esteemed journals and international conferences.

Recently, Quantum Computing (QC) has been leveraged for machine learning with the expectation that the uncertainty inherent in QC may be used to great advantage in stochastic-based modelling , spurring new research on Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices. To exploit the advantages of stochastic-based modelling in QML research, Dr. Konar has proposed Spiking Quantum Neural Networks using hybrid classical-quantum algorithms with the merits of superposition states and amplitude encoding. Within this Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow ship, the proposed models will be extensively validated on various computer vision applications, including disguised facial recognition using the PennyLane Quantum Simulator with limited quantum hardware and supercomputing resources available at Purdue University, USA.

Sneha Gole

Dr. Sneha Gole completed her B A in Political Science from Fergusson College, Pune, Maharashtra, and has a masters’ degree in S ocial W ork from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra. She subsequently completed her doctoral work in 2018 in the discipline of Women’s Studies from the Department of Women and Gender Studies at the Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, examining the women’s movement in the post 1990 period, mapping new spaces, strategies and issues of the movement. Her research areas are social movements, with a particular focus on women’s movements, gender and development, and gender and culture. She teaches papers on feminisms, feminist research methodology, and gender and popular culture, among others. Her other areas of engagement and research have been gender and higher education, the social history and cultural politics of K athak and the issue of declining child sex ratios. She was awarded the Awaben Wadia Archival Fellow ship by RCWS, SNDT University to work on an archive of life narratives of young feminists, 2017-18.

The present context is one of renewed backlash against feminism, both in India and the US and the increasing erosion of hard-won rights for ‘women’. Dr. Gole’s research funded by the Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellow ship titled ‘Understanding feminist subjectivities in the times of intersectionality: Linking Narratives, Memory and Politics’ is an attempt to understand the predicament of the feminist project in the current moment and imagine possible productive futures for it, by bringing insights from memory studies to life narrative analysis and mapping the particular trajectory of the concept of intersectionality in the context of India.

Suparna Basu

Dr. Suparna Basu obtained BSc (Hons.) in Statistics from University of Calcutta in 2011, M.Sc. in Statistics from Banaras Hindu University in 2013. She obtained PhD in statistics in the 2018 from Banaras Hindu University under the supervision of Prof. Sanjay K. Singh. She was awarded with the BHU-CRET Fellowship, UGC-NET Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and BSR-JRF during her PhD, although she had availed only the first two. Her thesis work was directed towards estimation techniques for various Time censored situations encountered in life-testing problems for two heavy-tailed distributions. Her research works have been published in journals of international repute. Dr. Basu has served as an Assistant Professor in the University of Burdwan during Feb. 2016 – Dec. 2019 and taught several courses to M.Sc. (Statistics) students, in addition to administrative and research endeavors. Thereafter, she joined Banaras Hindu University and has been actively involved in teaching, research and administration. She was awarded with the IOE-BHU, start-up grant of Rs. 6 lakhs in July, 2020.

Location-shifted Weibull, Gamma and Generalized exponential distributions, fails to meet an important regularity condition of the support being independent of unknown parameters. This impedes derivation of estimation techniques, especially those based on likelihood function like globally consistent estimators for complete/censored situation or any testing criterion to discriminate suitability of two competing models. Dr. Basu would explore some robust statistical estimation techniques for such non-regular distributions and illustrate its applicability on real data sets during her postdoctoral stint supported by the Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.

Anupam Banerjee

Prof. Anupam Banerjee is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Earth Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur since November 2021. Prior to this, Anupam was a postdoctoral researcher at Niigata University, Japan. Anupam pursued his PhD under the supervision of Prof. Ramananda Chakrabarti at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and was conferred the degree in 2018. He received an MSc in Geology from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 2011 and a BSc in Geology from Presidency College Kolkata, University of Calcutta, in 2009.

Prof. Banerjee’s research interest lies in the applications of radiogenic, and non-traditional stable isotopes of magmatic rocks to understanding both Earth’s surface and deep interior processes. He has published several research articles in peer-reviewed international journals. Prof. Banerjee is a recipient of the Institute Medal from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore for the best PhD thesis. He is also a recipient of several grants for attending international conferences which include the SERB Travel support, Student Travel Grant from the American Geophysical Union, GARP Travel Grants from IISc .

Prof. Banerjee’s research during the Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship is aimed at elucidating Earth’s deep carbon cycle using novel Mg and Zn stable isotopic compositions of carbon-rich magmatic rocks, called carbonatites. Important corollary questions that will be addressed in this project are: (i) How did Earth’s interior maintain the inventory of carbon with time? (ii) When did Earth’s carbon inventory establish and how did it change over geological time?

Shruti Suriyakumar

Dr. Shruti Suriyakumar did her post-graduation at Lady Doak College, Madurai, where she majored in physics and joined CSIR-Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), Karaikudi for her Ph.D. Her doctoral thesis on developing nanostructured composite cathodes, permselective separators, and ionic liquid-based hybrid electrolytes for lithium-sulfur batteries was conferred the Best Thesis award in Physical Sciences from the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), New Delhi.

Dr. Suriyakumar later received the National Post Doctoral Fellowship at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram (IISER TVM). Her research was focused on developing sulphide-based solid electrolytes for sodium batteries. As a project scientist at IISER TVM, she has contributed to developing solid electrolytes for lithium and sodium batteries and has been involved in designing electrodes and electrolytes for next-generation battery chemistries.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Suriyakumar’s research at Rice University, Houston, TX is focusing on electrode-electrolyte interface engineering for solid-state batteries. The project involves the rational design of 2D materials, introducing them as interlayers/ coatings between the solid-solid point of contact and regulating the lithium-ion flux, thereby improving the cycling stability and performance of all-solid-state lithium batteries.

Harshit Sosan Lakra

Dr. Harshit Sosan Lakra, a proud Oraon tribe woman from India, serves as assistant professor in the Department of Architecture and Planning and joint faculty at the Centre for Indian Knowledge Systems at IIT Roorkee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in architecture from MANIT, Bhopal and a master’s degree in environmental planning from CEPT, Ahmedabad. Dr. Lakra was a FORD Foundation International fellow, which enabled her to pursue her second master’s in urban and regional planning from Cornell University in 2009, with a focus on international studies in planning. At Cornell University, she won the Cornell Urban Scholarship award and the Graduate Research Scholarship award. She completed her doctoral research at IIT Roorkee in 2019. In 2023, Dr, Lakra was selected as a Himalayan University Consortium fellow through which she co-leads a workgroup and collaborates with women leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.

Dr. Lakra is leading national and international projects focusing on Tribal Human Development Index (HDI), adaptation of indigenous and local knowledge systems, and Fintech Solutions for comprehensive tribal development in Chhattisgarh, along with GoAL (gender-orientated adaptive learning) for climate change and disaster risk resilience in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Japan, indicating her interdisciplinary interest.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Lakra intends to create a platform for discourse, co- and cross-learning on housing, culture, and environment at different scales and connect students, stakeholders, and indigenous communities from India and the U.S. The project will bring diverse understanding and experiences, especially for the domain and community that is less researched.

Sujata Singh

Dr. Sujata Singh is a technical analyst at Customized Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd., an energy sector-based consulting firm, in association with Indian Energy Storage Alliance (IESA). She obtained her Ph.D. degree from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. Her doctoral research focused on studying the microstructure-property correlation of High Entropy Alloy-Carbon Nanotubes composites. She received her master’s degree in metallurgical and materials engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and bachelor’s degree from Birsa Institute of Technology, Sindri, Dhanbad.

Dr. Singh’s research interest is in the study of electrochemical behavior of advanced materials, understanding underlying electrochemistry in protective coatings/thin films, utilizing nanomaterials to achieve enhanced properties, electron microscopy, microstructure-property correlation, and failure analysis with applications in the field of corrosion and Lithium-Ion Battery. She has published several research articles in reputed international journals and received the Senior Research Fellowship issued by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India. She also received an award for the best all-round performance in 2013.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow, Dr. Singh is developing alternate battery technologies that enable sustainable, cost-effective, and reliable electrochemical energy storage. The focus of the study is to investigate new electrode architecture, exploring methods to mitigate issues such as capacity fading, mechanical degradation, dendrite formation and cyclability in Sodium-Antimony Intermetallic Battery. The project advances the field’s understanding of this promising energy storage technology.

Sujay Shekar Ganganakatte Chandrashekar

Dr. Sujay Shekar G. C. is an environmental researcher and a metaphysicist. He earned his bachelor’s degree (2015) in science from Sarada Vilas College, Mysuru, and his master’s degree (2017) in physics from St. Philomena’s College, Mysuru. He received his Ph.D. in Physics (2023) from the University of Mysore. In 2018, he worked as a university lecturer at Department of Science in Physics, University of Mysore, and later joined as an assistant professor in 2023 at RNSIT, Visvesvaraya Technological University. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Studies in Physics at St. Philomena’s College, and the Board of Examination in Physics at Karnataka State Open University and JSS Science and Technology University.

Dr. Sujay Shekar believes in understanding the natural world as a means of achieving spiritual enrichment. In this pursuit, he initiated his research on solar energy utilization to create a more sustainable future. He works in the field of physical chemistry and material science to develop advanced nanomaterials for cleaner and more efficient light energy conversion. Through his doctoral research projects, he contributed to semiconductor photoelectrochemistry by engineering nanomaterials for effective photocatalytic applications. He even demonstrated the usage of sunlight for more sustainable synthesis methods of functional materials. Many of his designed compounds exhibited better solar energy conversion efficiency and produced greener solar fuels.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Postdoctoral Research fellow at the University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Dr. Sujay Shekar is developing new photosystems for boosted photochemical tandem reactions and understand the underlying phenomena of charge dynamics.