U.S. Fellows 2025-2026 Archives - Page 3 of 8

Sunrit Panda

Sunrit Panda is a researcher and development professional interested in cultivating financially sustainable solutions for large-scale social problems in the Global South. With broad quantitative experience in statistics, machine learning, environmental modeling, and finance, he is using his Fulbright year to contribute to his larger body of academic and social work on carbon sequestration. He is also coordinating brick kiln emissions testing in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Punjab for the Mauzerall Group at Princeton University’s Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment. In prior roles, Sunrit worked on the credit and investment banking teams of a Singaporean emerging markets impact investment firm as well as on the corporate partnerships team of a finance professional development organization. From teaching AI in village schools to building tubewells, Sunrit also has a long history of service in rural India. A New Jersey native, he holds a bachelor’s degree in operations research and financial engineering from Princeton University.

Sunrit’s Fulbright-Nehru project is investigating the differences in greenhouse gas and particulate emissions between open-field burning of rice straw and Kon-Tiki flame curtain pyrolysis in Paschim Medinipur, West Bengal. Open-field burning contributes significantly to winter smog in the Indo-Gangetic plain, while Kon-Tiki pyrolysis offers a low-cost alternative that produces biochar, a carbon-sequestering soil amendment. The study is quantifying CO₂, CO, CH₄, NO₂, PM2.5, and PM10 emissions across two stubble-burning seasons. It is also examining how emission data can inform carbon and methane offset pricing; this can pave the way for economic incentives for smallholder farmers and also support policy development within India’s emerging carbon market framework.

Alexandra Mouangue

Alexandra Mouangue is an emerging researcher and practitioner in the field of mindfulness and holistic mental health. She is particularly interested in somatic (body-focused) interventions for trauma and anxiety. In 2024, Alexandra graduated summa cum laude from Wellesley College with a BA in psychology and a minor in economics. Her honors thesis, “Beyond Social Class: A Mixed Methods Exploration of Resource Predictability, Uncertainty, and the Factors Influencing Temporal Discounting”, reflects her commitment to understanding how sociocultural contexts shape psychological well-being and decision-making. Her current work expands on this subject and explores the intersections of mind, body, and culture in mental health.

Alexandra’s lived experience as an African immigrant informs her research on how emotions and trauma are embodied, and how movement, breath, and meditation can facilitate healing. Within her academic and personal ventures, Alexandra has steadily pursued community-based mindfulness research. She has had a stint at Drexel University as a research coordinator co-leading educational support groups for adolescents, focusing on behavioral and acceptance-based interventions for eating disorders and weight loss. Her extensive research experience and volunteer work has instilled in her a deep passion for establishing equitable mental health care, particularly for low-income and immigrant populations. Fluent in English, French, and Spanish, Alexandra is also an aspiring yoga teacher and herbalist. Her overarching goal is to set up her own holistic mental health clinic where she can integrate the wisdom of the body and the land into evidence-based practice.

Through the Fulbright-Nehru project, Alexandra is deepening her expertise in mind–body therapies in order to contribute to the development of interventions addressing the mental, emotional, and physiological needs of diverse communities. Her project is focusing on co-regulation- and mindfulness-based group therapy, alongside explorations of yoga, acupuncture, and massage throughout South India. The aims of the study are to: examine the effectiveness of somatic practices in reducing anxiety, depression, and hyperarousal; explore the roles of co-regulation and community-building in mental health outcomes; investigate the impact of interoception and trait mindfulness on treatment outcomes; and gain valuable insights from practitioners on the application of holistic practices worldwide.

Tenzin Kunsang

Tenzin Kunsang is a graduate of Cornell University with a BA in biology and society, and a minor in inequality studies on the Health Equity Track. During her time on campus, she was involved in public health and education initiatives with a specific focus on equity, social justice, and cross-cultural dialogue. This included clubs and organizations such as Cornell Center for Health Equity Undergraduate Chapter, College & Career Readiness Initiative, Community Learning and Service Partnership, and the Arts & Sciences Ambassadors Program. She also has experience in communications, having worked as the science editor for her school’s newspaper and as a communications intern at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. As a Gilman Scholar and Laidlaw Scholar, she traveled to Fiji, Nepal, and India during her undergraduate years.

A six-decade-old institution founded in Dharamshala, India, the Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) has evolved in tandem with the sociopolitical “Tibet issue” within the India-China-U.S. triangle. As a result, there has been a rise in Himalayan descendants and overseas Tibetan refugees in TCV, but a decrease in Tibetan refugees directly from Tibet. Tenzin’s Fulbright-Nehru project in Dharamshala is particularizing the term “Himalayans” to analyze which regions are experiencing the most outmigration into TCV and why TCV is a more favorable schooling option compared to more proximate schools. Through semi-structured interviews, archival and ethnographic fieldwork, and participant observation, she is also examining how TCV students have become key components in promoting identity formation and kinship networks. On completion of the project, Tenzin plans on transferring the skills she acquired from it to pursuing an MPH at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Margaret Kuffner

Margaret Kuffner graduated cum laude from Boston College in May 2025 with a BA in international studies, with concentrations in global cultures and public health. Margaret developed a passion for the world at a young age, having lived in Switzerland with her family and later in Denmark as a Rotary Youth Exchange Student. During her undergrad junior year, she studied abroad in India through the School for International Training where she interned with the Comprehensive Rural Healthcare Project. Margaret’s professional experiences include working as a research assistant for the Mass General Lymphedema team, volunteering at the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, and serving as a patient care intern at South County Health in Rhode Island.

She previously served as secretary general and currently holds the role of deputy chief operating officer at the Eagle Institute for Global Affairs and Leadership. In this capacity, Margaret advances the organization’s mission of fostering a globally conscious society through community collaboration, educational programming, and forward-thinking initiatives. In her free time, Margaret enjoys training for her next marathon, experimenting with new recipes, and going to the beach with friends.

As a Fulbright-Nehru research scholar, Margaret is investigating the implementation and impact of the World Health Organization Safe Childbirth Checklist (SCC) as a tool to promote a shared responsibility of safety between healthcare professionals (HCPs) and mothers. The SCC increases safe birthing practices by addressing key risks (e.g., bleeding, infection, high blood pressure) at four pause points: on admission; just before pushing; soon after birth; and before discharge. The project hopes to prove that when HCPs educate mothers and their companions about the SCC by actively encouraging dialogue around cross-checking SCC steps, mothers will be empowered, patient–HCP communication will be enhanced, and pregnancy, childbirth, and the postnatal period will be safer for mothers and their babies.

Shekha Kotak

Shekha Kotak is a sixth year PhD candidate in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She works on the intersection of caste, translation studies, and the history of emotions. She completed her bachelor’s in English literature from Rutgers University, New Jersey. Shekha has over nine years of tutoring and teaching experience. She has taught a range of subjects such as K-12 English and history, college-level research writing, SAT and TOEFL English, and beginner’s English to immigrant children. As part of her PhD requirements, Shekha has taught bachelor’s courses on topics such as Buddhism and Asian studies. She is also an avid translator, translating from and into Gujarati, Hindi, and English. Her translation of the Dalit author Ajay Navaria’s short story is forthcoming in the Granta magazine. When not immersed in academic research, Shekha spends time reading novels, literary magazines and blogs, and occasionally writing on various subjects.

Shekha’s Fulbright-Nehru research is focusing on emotive world-making in Hindi and Gujarati Dalit literatures and in their English translations. The research is delving into both print and digital literary canons, and studying Dalit texts across languages and media to reveal the critical language of emotions and the range of feelings they generate. Shekha’s work is attempting to heed the call of Dalit authors who urge for a different paradigm of literary aesthetics to critically engage with Dalit literature – they are not in favor of emotions such as grief, fear, love, joy, and rage being taken for granted, but advocates for interpreting Dalit interiority in literary writings through the lens of Dalit pain and consciousness.

Enoch Kim

Enoch Kim is a recent graduate from Pitzer College, a member of the Claremont Colleges Consortium. He majored in political science and international affairs, focusing on the political economy of Asia and the Middle East. Hailing from Illinois, he spent his formative years rooted in Korean-American activism.

Enoch has written for various newspapers on campus, such as The Student Life and Claremont Undercurrents, where he reported on labor organizing, student protests, and on-campus movements. He was also a delegate, training manager, and vice president of Pomona College’s Model UN (MUN), where he competed in conferences across the United States, earning accolades such as Outstanding Delegate for his four-day performance in the AI warfare policy committee for the Harvard National MUN 2024. He has also worked with Welcome to Chinatown, a community-based nonprofit focused on combating gentrification and preserving immigrant culture in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Besides, he has worked as a DEI and government affairs intern at Ingredion, a Fortune 500 company in global food solutions. Presently, he is volunteering for the campaign of Kat Abughazaleh, a progressive congressional candidate for IL-9. Enoch is passionate about protecting the rights of the marginalized and combating authoritarians, at home and abroad.

Enoch’s Fulbright-Nehru project is studying the economic and environmental impacts of the rising fast fashion industry in Tirupur, Mumbai, Lucknow, and Delhi. He is particularly focusing on the fast fashion brand Shein that represents a global consumption pattern toward synthetic textiles, in contrast to the domestic consumption pattern, which is more geared toward the natural textiles produced by small businesses. He is also exploring a circular economy framework to find ways for small businesses to improve their business using their competitive advantage of higher environmental sustainability. Enoch’s project aims to create a holistic picture of the Indian textile ecosystem in order to create pathways for MSMEs to survive and evolve in this era of globalization.

Sarah Khan

Sarah Khan graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she majored in culture and politics with a concentration in race, caste, gender, and postcolonial development. Through her coursework, she deepened her understanding of the relationships among labor, capital, and the state with gender, desirability, and social mobility. Her senior thesis explored the construction of Muslim masculinities and femininities through techno-sex economies, wherein she analyzed the racialized nature of libidinal economies and offered a critique of Western liberal feminism. In addition to her academic work, Sarah is deeply passionate about teaching. She has served as an instructor for the Yale Young Global Scholars Program, a volunteer teacher for low-income youth in Washington, DC, through Georgetown University’s Center for Social Justice, and as an ESL instructor for newly resettled refugees in Atlanta through the International Rescue Committee.

As a recipient of the U.S. State Department’s critical language scholarship, Sarah studied the politics and poetics of her ancestral language, Urdu, in Lucknow during the summer of 2024. Most recently, she served as a fellow with the American India Foundation’s Banyan Impact Fellowship, working with the Hyderabad-based NGO Kriti Social Initiatives on the strategic implementation of economic empowerment initiatives for marginalized women.

Sarah’s Fulbright-Nehru project is using caste as an analytical framework to understand the lineage- and labor-based system of social stratification among Indian Muslims. To contextualize, conceptualize, and dismantle Ashraf (upper-caste) supremacy, her work is investigating how hyper endogamy functions as a mechanism through which caste rigidity is articulated, legitimized, and perpetuated. Through ethnographic research in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Sarah is exploring how caste operates in and through class, educational background, and spatiality (urban/rural); she is also particularly focusing on the gendered dynamics of marriage and social mobility.

Walsh Kern

Walsh Kern is a 2025 graduate of Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. He previously worked as an intern in Washington, D.C., in both the U.S. Senate and the Department of the Interior, where his work primarily focused on renewable energy policy. He developed an interest in Indian politics while working as a research assistant for Professor Aseema Sinha who was studying Indian welfare schemes.

Walsh’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is exploring the question: how are India’s international renewable energy commitments implemented at the subnational level? He is particularly interested in understanding the motivations behind state climate action and examining how policies vary across states. His research is focusing on the state governments of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to analyze this variation. The aim is to identify the driving forces behind state-level renewable energy policy in order to offer valuable insights into this critical policy landscape. Since renewable energy collaboration is a major component of the U.S.-India relationship, his research will also contribute to a deeper understanding of India’s transition towards green energy.