USA Fellows Year: U.S. Fellows 2024-2025

Lalitha Shanmugasundaram

Lalitha Shanmugasundaram is a recent graduate from George Washington University (GW), where she majored in international affairs with concentrations in international development and environmental studies and a minor in mathematics. She was a member of the Elliott School Dean’s Scholars Program where she researched the intersection of gender and the environment by studying menstrual hygiene management in India. In addition to her independent research, she has worked for the Institute for International Economic Policy, The Breakthrough Institute, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Wilson Center, and GW Sustainability Institute, as an intern and research assistant. Her work spans across many dimensions of sustainability, including energy, food, and water. Outside of her research, Lalitha is an avid runner who competes in marathons.

Climate change has already begun affecting India, with the coastal state of Tamil Nadu experiencing drought, floods, and water scarcity. Previous research has shown that this water scarcity will not only impact the livelihoods of farmers, but also harm female sanitation needs and waste management, especially in the rural areas. With limited access to water, women in the rural and tribal areas may find it difficult to maintain proper menstrual hygiene and sanitation, leading to improper waste management. Without access to water, the core tenets of water justice also cannot be fulfilled, leading to environmental injustices. In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Lalitha is exploring how access or lack of access to water is creating issues in menstrual hygiene management and sanitation. She is also studying whether government schemes aimed at resolving sanitation and menstrual hygiene management issues are helping to alleviate some of the challenges brought on by water scarcity. Additionally, Lalitha is examining what the environmental justice repercussions are of government initiatives and water scarcity. She is also exploring the food–water–energy nexus and the impacts of climate change on this nexus through a feminist political ecology lens.

Hamsa Shanmugam

Hamsa Shanmugam completed her BA with honors from Brown University in May 2024. At Brown, she pursued a double concentration in health and human biology and music. Hamsa’s undergraduate honors thesis in ethnomusicology presented a musicological analysis of Thēvāram from a Carnatic music perspective and compared melodic frameworks between Thēvāram and Carnatic music. Her research interests are in ethnomusicology, specifically, Thēvāram, ancient Tamil music, and Carnatic music.

Hamsa is a Carnatic vocalist and violinist. She is a disciple of Dr. B. Balasubrahmaniyan and “Sangita Kalanidhi” Lalgudi Vijayalakshmi. Hamsa performs solo concerts regularly across the U.S. and India. She is the recipient of numerous prizes, scholarships, and fellowships in music. In 2022, Hamsa was the winner of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations’ Pratibha Sangam Global Carnatic Music Competition and was invited by the Indian government to give a musical tour across India.

Hamsa is the founder and co-president of Brown Bhairavi, Brown University’s premier South Asian classical music group. She has also served as the marketing lead for MIT Heritage Arts of South Asia, an organization dedicated to promoting South Asian classical art forms. Following her year in India with the Fulbright-Nehru fellowship, as part of the Program in Liberal Medical Education, the only combined BS/MD program in the Ivy League, Hamsa will matriculate to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University to complete her MD degree.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Hamsa is conducting ethnomusicological research on Thēvāram, the Tamil devotional music of the Saiva tradition. Her research is exploring how Thēvāram concerts can be performed within the Carnatic kutcheri (concert) structures while maintaining Thēvāram’s musical and lyrical integrity; she is doing so by using undigitized musical archives and working with affiliates at Annamalai University and the Kapaleeswarar Temple. This project is set to culminate in the presentation of a full-length Thēvāram concert in the Carnatic concert format. Hamsa hopes that her work will broaden the horizons of Western musicology, enrich Carnatic music, expand Thēvāram’s reach, and allow more Tamil audiences in both Tamil Nadu and the diaspora to reconnect with this ancient musical tradition.

Stuti Shah

Stuti Shah is a third-year doctoral candidate at Columbia Law School in New York. Her dissertation focuses on re-imagining crime and punishment in India through subaltern and feminist lenses. It engages in a critical rethinking of law and penal institutions that harm people and communities.

With a dual undergraduate degree in law and humanities from NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, Stuti spent three years at Trilegal, a leading law firm in India, focusing on data protection and intellectual property law. Her academic journey then took her to the U.S., where she earned her master’s in law from Columbia Law School. In the U.S., she has been a research fellow with the African American Policy Forum, Children of Incarcerated Caregivers, Reprieve, and the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School. She has also provided research assistance to Sanctuary for Families and Broadway Advocacy Coalition.

Stuti has written editorials and op-eds for reputable publications like The Hindu, The Indian Express, The Quint, The Wire, Deccan Herald, Firstpost, and Bar and Bench. Her article, “Beyond Caste Carcerality: Re-Imagining Justice in Sexual Violence Cases”, will soon be featured in the UCLA Law Review. Additionally, her piece, “Incarcerated Women and their Children in Indian Prisons”, appeared in the Economic & Political Weekly.

Stuti’s Fulbright-Nehru project is critically analyzing the experiences of incarcerated mothers – disproportionately belonging to the marginalized castes and classes – who are allowed to raise their children in Indian prisons till the children are six years old. This project is addressing the gap between existing law and scholarship on motherhood and state protection for children in prisons, and realities on ground. It is also engaging in a comparative study of Indian law and practical challenges with the U.S. model of motherhood in prisons where babies born to incarcerated women are promptly separated a year or so after their birth.

Niyati Shah

Niyati Shah is an Indian American research analyst and community organizer based in Washington, DC, who synthesizes mixed methods and participatory research to advance public and planetary health. She holds a BS in statistics and public health from George Washington University. In Washington, Niyati served as a grassroots organizer for Ward 2 Mutual Aid, which is a community-led effort to build solidarity, meet the survival needs of unhoused neighbors, and foster collective support during times of crisis. She was a key member of its Oral History Project, which documents the realities of housing and food insecurity, and showcases how neighbors organize to address these issues. She previously worked at Westat, where she collaborated on projects that evaluated and monitored the U.S.’s social safety net programs with the mission to improve the health outcomes of historically underserved communities. At Westat, she contributed to research on nursing home staff during COVID-19, examined the regional differences in the quality of kidney care in the U.S., and studied the experiences of mothers on supplemental nutrition programs in rural areas. Prior to Westat, Niyati worked at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) where she helped measure the role of social networks on the health outcomes and burden among caregivers of children with metabolic disorders. Niyati presented her team’s research at the NHGRI symposium in 2019. In her free time, Niyati knits and crochets, bakes cardamom-orange olive oil cake, and befriends neighborhood cats. She also performs Bharatnatyam and Kathak dances with DC’s performing arts group, Nootana, and with Lasya Dance Academy.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project at Bengaluru, Niyati, by integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches, is examining how rural–urban migration into sites of climate vulnerability impacts the health of migrant women. Guided by frameworks within environmental scholarship, her research is exploring the reasons for migration and studying the migrants’ exposure to hazards, as well as the health risks and coping strategies. The study’s findings are expected to spur the development of structures that facilitate the mobility of displaced women and support their adaptation strategies in the face of climate breakdown.

Chandni Shah

Chandni Shah graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and minors in chemistry and healthcare management. After graduation, she worked as a clinical research coordinator at Penn Medicine, where she studied and helped carry out a novel social-functioning program for adults on the autism spectrum. She focused on developing methods of outreach to diverse groups in the autism community in the hope of increasing access and equity in autism research. Chandni also has experience conducting insomnia and mindfulness research; her study was accepted for poster presentation at the 2022 Associated Professional Sleep Societies Conference and its abstract has been published in SLEEP. Research has been at the core of her academic career thus far. In fact, Chandni has been able to work on seven studies and move toward the publication of four papers (of which she is the primary author of three). She hopes to leverage clinical research to make significant positive changes in the medical field. Her hobbies include dancing, playing the violin and clarinet, and writing slam poetry.

Research studies have shown that in India, there is a significant delay between the first recognition of symptoms to the actual initiation of treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD); this is detrimental to the development of a child on the autism spectrum. Although scientific literature reveals these delays exist, there is little research exploring the causes behind such delays. Chandni’s Fulbright-Nehru project, while filling these research gaps, is identifying the barriers that prevent families from receiving early ASD diagnoses and interventions. She is also investigating the mental well-being of the caregivers of children on the autism spectrum.

Sezin Sakmar

Sezin Sakmar recently graduated from the George Washington University with a major in anthropology and a minor in public health. During her undergraduate career, Sezin spent over 3,000 hours in various clinical settings ranging from working as an EMT and as an ED technician at a Level 1 trauma hospital to being a medical assistant at a pediatric clinic. Through these experiences, she fell in love with medicine but noticed the ways in which the American healthcare system was beset by serious infrastructural issues which led to health inequities in the case of minority communities. When studying in India through the School for International Training, Sezin conducted fieldwork with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in rural Maharashtra, which helped her to realize her dream of becoming an OBGYN and providing empowerment-driven healthcare to communities around the world. During her final year of university, she also conducted independent research on racially concordant care among Washington, DC’s Black birthing population.

Sezin’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is bringing together the fields of public health and critical medical anthropology to make a positive impact on communities seeking family planning care. Through this research, Sezin is seeking to understand the particular ways in which healthcare providers are trained to deliver family planning services.

Saideepika Rayala

Saideepika Rayala is a recent graduate of Yale University from where she received a BA in history and was part of Yale Law School’s academic program in human rights. Her studies focused on South Asian environmental history, forced migration, and international human rights law. Saideepika wrote her undergraduate history thesis on the relationship between Indian industrialization and nationalism during the 1920s Mulshi anti-dam movement.

At Yale, she served as the project leader for the Lowenstein Human Rights Project’s Crimes Against Humanity mission and advocated for a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty at the United Nations Sixth Committee. She also served as city editor of the Yale Daily News and online managing editor of The Yale Review of International Studies. Saideepika has worked for Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights, the International Detention Coalition, and the Migrant Forum in Asia.

In her free time, Saideepika enjoys painting, boxing, listening to podcasts, and trying new foods.

Saideepika’s Fulbright-Nehru project is exploring how dams came to symbolize India’s trajectory toward freedom, modernity, and development in the post-independence period of the 1940s–1960s. She is conducting archival research and media analysis, primarily focusing on three major dams constructed during this period, to understand the debates surrounding these projects and how the country sought to balance economic development with ecological stability. She believes that studying this period can reveal how dams came to occupy a central role in Indian society and that past projects can inform modern-day dam-building efforts.

Michelle Pu

Michelle Pu is a recent graduate from Tufts University, where she studied biology and child studies and human development. She is passionate about learning how she can best support the neurodiverse and disabled population throughout their lifespan. As an undergraduate student, Michelle worked in a rehabilitation center serving neurodiverse and physically disabled adults. Motivated by this experience, she worked in the Crehan Lab at Tufts University delivering a sexual education curriculum to autistic teenagers and researched how autistic adults interact in intimate relationships. She also worked in the Feinberg Broder-Fingert Lab at UMass Chan Medical School investigating an early-intervention curriculum for young children with social communication challenges. Besides, she conducted a research project regarding electronic communication devices for physically disabled adults. It was Michelle’s experiences as a mental health hotline operator, hospice volunteer, and as a volunteer working with housing-insecure children that shaped her interest in supporting others’ mental health and social well-being at all ages and life stages.

In her Fulbright-Nehru research project, Michelle is investigating the impact of affiliate stigma on caretakers when they disclose their child’s autism diagnosis to others. Affiliate stigma is defined as internalized stigma felt by the family members of a stigmatized individual. While previous studies have established that Indian parents of autistic children may experience affiliate stigma, research has not yet investigated the effects of such stigma. For her research, Michelle is conducting semi-structured interviews with caregivers of autistic children in Bengaluru regarding their experiences in navigating their child’s diagnosis.

Anousha Peters

Anousha Peters is a labor, youth, and abolitionist organizer. She currently works at Labor Notes, which educates workers who are democratizing their trade unions. She also organizes with Dissenters, a youth anti-militarist organization fighting for the investment of resources in life-giving services. She previously worked with United for Respect supporting retail employees at Amazon and Walmart who were espousing the cause of dignity in their workplaces. Anousha studied sociology at Columbia University where she conducted research with professors Adam Reich and Hana Shepherd. Before transferring, she attended the liberal arts program of Deep Springs College in California for two years. Originally from Gainesville, Florida, Anousha’s professional and political interests have focused on marginalized and precarious workers. She enjoys running, watercolor painting, listening to podcasts, and bringing together and hosting friends.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Anousha is studying women’s participation in platform gig work in India wherein freelance workers are connected to consumers through online marketplaces. She is studying the reasons behind women taking up such work, the workingconditions they encounter, and their feelings of safety and agency in their work. While the study is focusing on the city of Hosur in the outskirts of Bengaluru, its learnings will find use across India and beyond since gig work is growing globally and is often conducted on transnational platforms.

Ariana Pemberton

Ariana Pemberton is a PhD candidate in the History of Art department at the University of California (UC), Berkeley. Her dissertation is on ivory-carved objects from South Asia and on the Indian Ocean ivory trade, from the eighth to fifteenth centuries. Part of her research includes testing ivory objects using peptide mass fingerprinting analyses, which determine the provenance of the ivory to the species level. Ariana presented parts of her dissertation research at the Getty Graduate Symposium in January 2024 and at the University of Toronto in May 2024.

She also teaches an undergraduate course at UC Berkeley that focuses on art and material culture from the Indian Ocean World, ca. 700–1500 CE. Previously, she delivered lectures to upper-division undergraduates on “Bronze, Ivory, and Dragon’s Blood: Making the Middle Ages in the Indian Ocean World”. Ariana has also worked as a graduate student instructor in Asian Art at UC Berkeley.

In 2022, she completed her MA thesis on the Firuz Minar, a brick-and-basalt minaret built in Bengal during the 15th century, which today stands as the oldest extant monument in India patronized by an African ruler. Ariana presented this thesis at the Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Madison, Wisconsin (October 2022), and at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Honolulu (March 2022). She completed her bachelor’s in art history from UC Berkeley in 2017. She has also conducted extensive fieldwork in India and has been a student of Hindi and Sanskrit.

Ivory was one of the most enigmatic materials in medieval South Asia: religious icons were carved out of ivory; rulers sat on ivory thrones; medical practitioners prescribed ivory for ailments; men and women lay on aphrodisiac ivory beds; and ivory chess pieces circulated across the Eurasian world. However, the centrality of this material transformed it into a global bio-commodity, setting into motion an ecological process that led to the endangerment of elephants. In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Ariana is writing a longue durée ecological art history of South Asian ivory.