U.S. Fellows 2024-2025 Archives - Page 8 of 10

William Belcher

Dr. William Belcher is a forensic anthropologist and archaeologist in the School of Global Integrative Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He manages the UNL Forensic Anthropology Research Laboratory as well as the undergraduate and graduate programs in forensic anthropology. Dr. Belcher consults and trains in identification efforts with local law enforcement within the State of Nebraska and beyond. Prior to coming to UNL in 2019, he retired as the deputy laboratory director of the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency’s Central Identification Laboratory where he conducted forensic investigation, recovery, and identification efforts to support the US mission of missing-in-action identification and repatriation to family members. His research has been featured in numerous academic conferences in the U.S. and South Asia and in several publications.

Dr. Belcher’s Fulbright-Nehru project’s main goal is to provide a framework for building up the forensic anthropological/archaeological capacity of the National Forensic Sciences University in Gujarat. This involves three academic courses – in human osteology, forensic anthropology, and a field course in forensic archaeology – and is set to culminate in a field exercise of approximately five weeks in the north-eastern region of India associated with a U.S. World War II-era aircraft incident. Currently, there is no curriculum in the Republic of India in terms of archaeological recovery and excavation associated with crime scene investigation.

Ricca Slone

Prof. Ricca Slone has been teaching graduate public policy courses in Northwestern University’s School of Professional Studies for the past 12 years. Most recently, she taught an online course on Congressional procedure in Fall 2023. Before teaching at Northwestern University, Prof. Slone worked on water-supply issues for three years at the Environmental Law & Policy Center, a research and advocacy organization based in Chicago which works in several U.S. Midwestern states. From 1997 to 2005, Prof. Slone served four terms as a state representative in the Illinois House of Representatives, representing the 92nd district in central Illinois. She also chaired the Higher Education Appropriations Committee and was the vice chair of the Energy & Environment Committee.

As a senior scholar near the end of her working years, Prof. Slone hopes to rejuvenate the Sun Oven project by relaunching the assembling and marketing of solar ovens from a new location in Karnataka so that they can help women in South India who cook over wood fires.

Prof. Slone’s Fulbright-Nehru project is identifying strategies to overcome Indian cultural challenges to adopting renewable technologies. The framework for analysis is Nordgren and Schonthal’s friction theory (The Human Element, 2022). The project’s focus is on adoption of clean solar cooking by rural Indian women who otherwise cook over smoky fires, which is time consuming and causes respiratory diseases and deforestation. The research is a case study comparing the relative ease of adoption of the following technologies: wind turbines for energy; electric tuk-tuks for mobility; and solar ovens for cooking. Prof. Slone’s hypothesis is that cooking will encounter the most cultural resistance.

Shira Singer

Ms. Shira Singer is a textile artist, art educator, and art therapist living in Bar Harbor, Maine. She has been applying color and pattern to cloth for several decades, while also focusing on the historical, social, and cultural contexts of different textile traditions and mediums. For the past six years, she has been using locally grown or foraged vegetation and plant materials to make fabric dyes.

Ms. Singer has been a teaching artist in a wide variety of settings, including schools, community arts programs for children and adults, senior colleges, and art festivals. She taught elementary school art for 15 years in multi-age classrooms on islands off the coast of Maine.

Ms. Singer has also had the privilege of leading art education workshops and making art with people of all ages: in Bengaluru, India, with the Parikrma Humanity Foundation; in Ambon, Indonesia, with the Heka Leka Education Foundation; and in Muscat, Oman, with the Sidab Women’s Sewing Center. Her textile pieces have been exhibited in galleries and shows throughout the U.S. and her recent work appeared in the Fall 2023 journal of the Surface Design Association, International Exhibition in Print.

Moreover, as an art therapist, she has over 35 years of experience in facilitating therapeutic art expression in psychiatric hospitals, counseling centers, and schools, as well as through private practice. Ms. Singer received her BS in elementary education from Northwestern University and her MA in art therapy from The George Washington University.

Ms. Singer’s Fulbright-Nehru project is focusing on understanding how natural dyeing traditions in India are evolving in response to rapid environmental change and societal impacts in the post-COVID scenario. As part of her project, she is creating a body of expressive artwork on cloth informed by conversations, research, and training with individuals who are engaged in preserving traditional practices of natural dyeing and design.

Pavana Prabhakar

Dr. Pavana Prabhakar is the Charles G. Salmon Associate Professor in the departments of mechanical engineering and civil and environmental engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she leads the Manufacturing and Mechanics Lab. She received her PhD in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 2013 and her MS in civil and environmental engineering from the University of California in 2008. She received her BTech in civil engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka in 2007.

Dr. Prabhakar has more than 15 years of research and teaching experience in composite materials with a specific focus on mechanics and advanced manufacturing. Her vision is to advance fundamental science for engineering damage-tolerant and resilient lightweight structures and materials for diverse applications in the aerospace, marine, wind, and automotive sectors. Her research occurs at the intersection of solid mechanics, advanced manufacturing, materials science, and computational science, and has been published regularly in reputed journals like Composites Part B, Composites Science and Technology, Materials & Design, Composite Structures, and Communications Materials.

Dr. Prabhakar has received numerous awards for her research, including the prestigious NSF CAREER (2021), ONR Young Investigator Program (2019), and AFOSR Young Investigator Program (2015). She is also the recipient of the 2019 American Society for Composites’ Young Composites Researcher Award given to an early-career member of the composites community who has significantly impacted the science and technology of composite materials through sustained research efforts. She also serves as an associate editor for Composites Part B. She is actively involved in the American Society for Composites and serves on its executive board as the membership secretary.

Dr. Prabhakar’s Fulbright-Nehru project is conducting fundamental research toward enabling greener and more sustainable solutions for next-generation composite materials, particularly natural fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites, a critical study and opportunity area. This project is set to establish the fundamental process–structure–property relationships of natural FRP composite materials, thereby accelerating their widespread use and durability.

Sirish Namilae

Dr. Sirish Namilae is a professor of aerospace engineering at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU). He obtained his MS in materials science from the Indian Institute of Science and a PhD in mechanical engineering from Florida State University. He joined the Aerospace Engineering Department at Embry-Riddle in 2014 after 10 years of experience in industry (Boeing) and national lab (Oak Ridge National Laboratory). At ERAU, Dr. Namilae leads the Advanced Materials and Mechanics Group and directs the composites lab. His research has focused on areas of composite materials and complex systems, as well as multiscale modeling. He has authored about 100 journal and conference publications in these research areas and has trained eight PhD and 20 MS thesis students. He has generated more than USD 6 million in research funding over the last few years. Dr. Namilae won ERAU’s Abbas–Sivjee Outstanding Researcher award in 2022. He is also an AIAA associate fellow.

In his Fulbright research fellowship, Prof. Namilae is collaborating with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras researchers to establish a novel foundation for interfacial design of next-generation composites. The research is pioneering the development of biodegradable natural fiber composites featuring nanoscale interfacial features. Additionally, Prof. Namilae is conducting novel experiments and formulating models to study interfacial mechanics and creating design maps that correlate nanoscale features with the desired composite properties. The outcomes of this research will provide guidance for optimal interface design of robust, multifunctional composites, including eco-friendly natural fiber composites.

Priya Nambisan

Dr. Priya Nambisan is a tenured associate professor at the Joseph J. Zilber College of Public Health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is the founder and director of two labs: the Social Media and Health Research & Training (SMAHRT) Lab; and the Aging Research & Digital Technologies (ARDT) Lab. She has a multidisciplinary background in terms of her education, work experience, and research. She has an undergrad degree in public health and extension education from India, a master’s degree in nutrition from Syracuse University, a PhD in communication and technology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a postdoc in health informatics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has also been a registered dietitian. She has lived and worked in India, Singapore, and the U.S..

Dr. Nambisan has conducted extensive research in areas like public health; wellness and prevention; personal health information management; patient–provider communication; online communities; and digital technologies for self-care. Her current research focuses on the use of new digital technologies and data analytics techniques (prediction modeling and machine learning) for providing social, emotional, and informational support to health consumers and patients. She has over 60 research publications and over 20 conference presentations. She has also delivered several invited talks, organized special sessions at conferences, and written invited book chapters on the above topics.

For the last few years, Dr. Nambisan has been immersed in building and validating a digital self- care platform for older adults who are dealing with multiple chronic conditions. The platform – known as Comprehensive Digital Self-care Support System (CDSSS), aka myHESTIA (my Healing Ecosystem for Self-care and Therapeutic Integration for the Aging) – enables older adults to keep track of their health, reduce stress, and improve sleep using digital healing tools.

Dr. Nambisan’s Fulbright-Nehru project is adapting the CDSSS-myHESTIA platform to fit the Indian context. The aim is to provide support for the physical, mental, and social health needs of older adults. The project also aims to enhance CDSSS-myHESTIA by incorporating elements such as Indian ways of healthy aging.

Mainak Mookherjee

Dr. Mainak Mookherjee obtained his BSc (1997) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and his MSc (1999) from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He went on to earn his PhD (2003) from the University of Cambridge. He moved to the U.S. in 2003 for postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan (2003–2005) and Yale University (2006–2008). Dr. Mookherjee then joined Bayreisches Geoinstitut, Bayreuth, Germany, as a visiting researcher in 2008. He returned to the U.S. in 2012 as a research scientist at Cornell University. Since 2015, Dr. Mookherjee has been a faculty member at Florida State University. In 2019, he was tenured and promoted from assistant to associate professor, and in 2024, to full professor.

Dr. Mookherjee’s primary research interest lies in understanding the processes that occur in the Earth’s interior. He uses a combination of experimental methods and complementary numerical simulations to understand the cycling/exchange of volatiles such as hydrogen/water and carbon dioxide between the Earth’s exosphere and its interior.

Geophysical observations have often indicated a presence of low viscosity channel which explains the southward extrusion of the Himalaya. The likely cause of this low viscosity channel is partial melting. In his Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Mookherjee is examining whether Himalayan crustal rocks contain trace quantities of water. This will help Earth scientists to gain insight into collisional dynamics and volatile cycling. He is also attempting to constrain the water contents in nominally anhydrous minerals of Himalayan crustal rocks. In addition, he is providing constraints to the physical properties of water-bearing melts which will enable geophysicists to test the low viscosity channel hypothesis.

Urmila Mohan

Dr. Urmila Mohan is a public anthropologist of material culture and studies how sociocultural values are circulated through cloth, bodily practices, and belief. She earned a PhD in anthropology from University College London, an MFA in studio arts from Pennsylvania State University, a BA (hons) in anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington, and a BFA in communication design from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Dr. Mohan’s research includes an ethnography of devotees who make garments for their deities and also wear specific clothing; this was published as Clothing as Devotion in Contemporary Hinduism. She also undertook a curatorial study of Balinese ritual textiles at the American Museum of Natural History, resulting in an exhibition and catalogue, Fabricating Power with Balinese Textiles. Besides, she is the author of the monograph, Masking in Pandemic U.S..

Dr. Mohan has written extensively on material practices and theorizes them in her edited volume, The Efficacy of Intimacy and Belief in Worldmaking Practices. Earlier, she had co-edited The Material Subject: Rethinking Bodies and Objects in Motion and a special issue of the Journal of Material Culture titled “The Bodily and Material Cultures of Religious Subjectivation”.

As part of her commitment to interdisciplinarity, Dr. Mohan founded the digital, open-access publication, The Jugaad Project. She is also a member of several global working groups, including the Matière à Penser network for embodiment studies.

Dr. Mohan’s Fulbright-Nehru project is an ethnographic study of weavers of silk ikat (resist-dyed) textiles in Gujarat, India. She is contextualizing ikat handloom innovation as a process of socio-technical ‘enchantment’ that engages weavers, traders, and consumers. She is also connecting woven cloths’ agency with changing socioeconomic and spiritual practices via weavers’ technical, bodily, and material adaptations. Her research adds to studies of how artisanal communities and heritage are shaped in India; it is doing so by analyzing shifts in practices/meanings due to migration, the influence of kinship on technology adoption and craft expansion, changing roles of women in weaving families, and the effects of the geographical indications patenting system.

Phanikumar Mantha

Dr. Phanikumar Mantha is a professor of civil and environmental engineering (College of Engineering) and professor of MSU AgBioResearch (College of Agriculture & Natural Resources) at Michigan State University (MSU), East Lansing. He obtained his PhD in engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and worked as a scientist at the National Aerospace Laboratories, Bengaluru, where he developed models of estuarine and coastal ocean processes and received the Sir C.V. Raman Young Scientist Award for his work in 1996. His research interests encompass the scientific, technical, societal, and policy aspects of water involving water quantity, water quality, public health, and water–energy–food systems. As a faculty member at MSU for over 25 years, he has worked with students and colleagues to address societally relevant water issues. Examples include: the development of process-based, coupled, physical–chemical–biological models and their applications to understand and predict coastal water quality in the Great Lakes region of North America; quantifying the effects of droughts on crop yields in Kenya and in Cambodia in the Mekong River Basin; and integrated hydrologic modeling of watersheds in the U.S. and UK. He has published in journals like JGR Oceans, Limnology and Oceanography, Water Resources Research, and Journal of Hydrology. Prof. Mantha was also a Lilly Teaching Fellow at MSU.

Prof. Mantha’s research is funded by grants from agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the United States Department of the Interior. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the International Association for Great Lakes Research and a fellow of the Geological Society of America.

The ecological products and services of India’s coastal environments are increasingly being impacted by harmful algal blooms (HABs). Effective strategies for their mitigation call for an understanding of the key factors behind their formation. Prof. Mantha’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying coastal water quality with a focus on HABs and the use of mathematical models and field observations to gain novel insights into important processes and drivers.