U.S. Fellows 2026-2027 Archives

Neeva Sethi

Neeva Sethi earned her BS in computer science and biology from the University of Florida, where she focused on leveraging technology to improve healthcare delivery and access to quality care. During her undergraduate studies, she was a founding engineer on a clinically studied virtual reality application designed for distraction-based therapy, thereby contributing to the development of immersive tools aimed at improving patient experience and outcomes. She also led a health-tech nonprofit that partnered with local hospitals to design and implement engineering-driven solutions to operational and patient-care challenges.

Since graduating, Neeva has been working as a software engineer on Microsoft’s High Performance Computing and AI team, where she builds large-scale distributed infrastructure that powers advanced AI applications such as ChatGPT and Copilot.

Drawing on both her technical background and her exposure to healthcare inequities, Neeva is particularly interested in how emerging technologies can be responsibly integrated into healthcare systems to improve access, efficiency, and equity at scale. She is especially focused on the role of infrastructure, policy, and global collaboration in shaping the future of healthcare delivery.

Neeva’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is examining how telemedicine can be augmented to improve equitable healthcare access in underserved regions. Based at IIT Jodhpur, the project is combining policy analysis through fieldwork across rural health centers in Rajasthan and a comparative study to identify barriers to telemedicine adoption, including in terms of infrastructure, digital literacy, and trust. The research is expected to produce actionable policy recommendations and a scalable framework for inclusive telehealth delivery in India and comparable global contexts.

Niveditha Senthilvel

Niveditha Senthilvel is a doctoral candidate in South Asian history at Boston University. She is an accomplished scholar whose academic interests lie at the intersection of environment, indigeneity, and security/criminalization. She is passionate about interrogating the parallel processes of state enclosure upon Indigenous peoples and the environments they steward, starting from the nineteenth century.

Prior to being a 2026–2027 Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, Niveditha was awarded the North American Conference on British Studies’ pre-dissertation fellowship in 2025 for her work on exploring the usage of the word “tribe” in the South Asian context. As an undergraduate, her senior capstone thesis on U.S. intervention in the 1943 Bengal Famine won the Jesse Fant Evans Prize for Best Senior Thesis from the George Washington University. Between her undergraduate and graduate careers, she worked across the government, nonprofit, and private sectors applying her research skills to the most compelling strategic challenges facing the world.

Between 1871 and 1949, hundreds of communities throughout South Asia were categorized as “criminal tribes” by the British Indian government, and they were surveilled and forcibly transferred to “reform settlements.” Niveditha’s Fulbright-Nehru project is documenting this history of forced settlement and “reform” policies targeting Indigenous populations across South Asia, with a particular focus on such settlements and residential schools in the Madras Presidency in southern India. Through this study, she hopes to contribute to the global conversation on the rights of Indigenous peoples, environmental degradation, and the responsibilities of contemporary governments in confronting histories of injustice.

Shruti Sagar

Shruti Sagar received her BA in community health from Tufts University. During her time at Tufts, she evaluated a water infrastructure intervention in Haiti, taught health education to high school students through Peer Health Exchange, and facilitated qualitative fieldwork for local health departments and nonprofits about emerging public health issues.

After graduation, she worked full time at the Medical Practice Evaluation Center in Boston, MA, where she contributed to several NIH-funded cohort studies and randomized controlled trials, including one study exploring the association between air pollution and lung function among people living with HIV in Uganda, and another study on the delivery of PrEP and contraceptives to women in hair salons in South Africa. She is a co-author on multiple peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Annals of the American Thoracic Society, BMC Public Health, and Annals of Internal Medicine.

After her time at the Medical Practice Evaluation Center, Shruti attended the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to complete her MPH. In addition to her research, Shruti served as a teaching assistant for MPH courses on epidemiology, implementation science, and program evaluation.

Shruti’s Fulbright-Nehru research is examining intracity disparities in air pollution exposure in Delhi. She is conducting a spatial analysis to identify and visualize geographic disparities in air pollution exposure and sociodemographic vulnerability, and is supplementing her findings with qualitative fieldwork to explore community perceptions of air pollution risk. In order to inform resource allocation and policy development, Shruti’s project is identifying the geographic areas in Delhi that are the most vulnerable to the impacts of air pollution exposure.

Harnoor Sachar

Harnoor Sachar graduated from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with a degree in science, technology, and international affairs, and a minor in biology. Her academic and research interests lie at the intersection of health systems and clinical medicine, and she has extensive experience conducting research in international settings. As a BSFS Summer Award, Barkanic Award, and CRF Summer Fellowship recipient, Harnoor spent two summers in Mysore, India, engaging in women’s health research, which ranged from health hazards faced by female beedi workers to health system gaps in cervical cancer care. She has gone on to present her findings at conferences such as the 2024 World Cancer Congress and CUGH 2026. Harnoor is also a recipient of the Georgetown Medical Humanities Research Fellowship whereby she has been able to bring her love for film and culture into her research interests by exploring the portrayal of motherhood in Bollywood movies.

In the clinical space, Harnoor works as a volunteer EMT in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and as a volunteer scribe at a free Spanish-speaking clinic in Arlington, Virginia.

Away from research and work, she is on Georgetown’s bhangra dance team, and enjoys singing, running, and trying out new restaurants.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, Harnoor is expanding on her interests in women’s health and the sociocultural factors of medicine. She is conducting a mixed-methods study to examine the social, structural, and gendered barriers contributing to rising sexually transmitted disease (STD) rates in Punjab, India. Her research is exploring how stigma, gender norms, and cultural taboos surrounding sexual health and healthcare access shape patients’ and providers’ experiences with STD diagnosis and treatment, particularly among women and adolescents. Through surveys and in-depth interviews with patients and healthcare providers, her work seeks to advance cross-cultural understanding of sexual health inequities and inform patient-centered strategies for stigma reduction, improved treatment uptake, and more equitable access to STD care in high-burden communities.

Pritha RaySircar

Pritha RaySircar is a writer, poet, audio documentarian, community worker, and an artist. She uses sound, words, cartoon, collage, fiber, and food performance to tell stories of (de)colonization, economics, identity, and immigration. Her current projects use family caregiving, menopause, and spinsterhood as lenses to interrogate allowed and conventional South Asian-American stereotypes. An Aspen Words Fellow, an AIR New Voices Fellow, and a holder of the Harpur Palate Award for Creative Nonfiction, Pritha is a current MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at the NYU Creative Writing Program, a poet at the Poetry Project, and studies short fiction with writer George Saunders alongside a worldwide cohort via Substack. She holds a postgraduate certificate in radio, podcasting, and audio documentary from the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies; an MS in public policy from the Milano School for Public Engagement/Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research as a full merit scholar; and a BA in English literature from Barnard College, Columbia University.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Pritha is researching and documenting oral histories of sraddha habishyanno – mourning food recipes and rituals – in Kolkata, West Bengal, to create a cultural process archive for diasporic Bengalis. No such centralized, easily understood, engaging layperson documentation exists. As a writer, documentarian, and social practice artist, Pritha is preserving the habishyanno practice in audio, text and text translation, image, and video as a legacy conveyance and to spark future user-friendly diasporic artefacts. An audio documentary, multimedia installation, and spoken-word performance are also in the works. Apart from these productions, Pritha’s research is set to shape and inform an American anthology book project on hospice and mourning comfort food and ritual.

Aanya Ravichander

Aanya Ravichander is a recent graduate of Emory University, where she earned a BA in human health with a minor in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. A passionate patient advocate, Aanya’s research work centers on applying narrative medicine and patient stories in care settings. She has researched the use of language as a tool for child survivors of sexual violence and worked on mental health care access for both incarcerated and unhoused individuals. At Emory, she worked with laboring refugee moms and supported incarcerated survivors of domestic violence during their parole. A particular emphasis of her work is on how sociodemographic indicators, like maternal education and the Child Opportunity Index, impact outcomes for marginalized groups.

Aanya aspires to be a compassionate physician who accords priority to patient experiences in her care. She hopes to continue to unearth areas of research in the intersections of clinical medicine and the humanities. Beyond her work, Aanya loves to play the drums, hang out with friends, work out, and explore local culture and cuisine.

Aanya’s Fulbright-Nehru research project sits at the intersection of women’s health and cultural expectations surrounding motherhood. She is studying postpartum depression and abuse in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, unpacking how community health workers and mothers respond to postnatal mental health challenges. Aanya hopes to determine the barriers to detecting, diagnosing, and treating abuse and postpartum depression to better serve the vulnerable populations. Using a mixed-methods approach, the project is analyzing both participant interviews and verified mental health scales to assess how to drive equitable, patient-centered care.

Puja Raol

Puja Raol is a neuroscience student in the Honors College at Georgia State University, where she graduated summa cum laude with minors in health policy and sociology. She aspires to become a physician who makes community-health interventions through direct clinical care for underserved populations. As a presidential scholar, Puja has demonstrated exceptional academic achievement with sustained commitment to leadership, research, and community service. She recently received the Nell Hamilton Trotter Award, the highest student leadership honor at Georgia State University.
Puja’s clinical and community engagement centers on improving healthcare access for underserved populations. As an executive member at Shifa Clinic, a nonprofit serving refugees and uninsured patients, she has led initiatives to expand preventive care, including coordinating six mobile mammogram programs in partnership with Northside Hospital.

Apart from Georgia State University, she has had research experience at Harvard Medical School and the Emory University School of Medicine. She is a recipient of the Gilman Scholarship and several first-place research awards. Her interests lie at the intersection of neuroscience, public health, and health equity, with a focus on addressing mental health disparities in marginalized populations.

Since research in low- and middle-income countries accords priority to physical health, adolescent mental health in rural areas remains understudied, particularly in terms of affordable interventions. Puja’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining adolescent mental well-being in rural low-income areas of India, focusing on scalable, low-cost mental health interventions. The research, being conducted in Jagadhia, Gujarat, in partnership with IIPG and SEWA Rural (a voluntary development organization), is leveraging local surveyors and community alliances. It is mainly assessing and implementing community-centered strategies, aiming to develop replicable, cross-cultural models that can reduce mental health disparities in India and similar global settings.

Siddhant Pratap

Siddhant Pratap is a 2024 graduate of the University of California (UC), Irvine, where he earned a BS in biological sciences cum laude. His academic interests lie in neuromuscular medicine, a field where therapeutic options remain limited and clinical understanding is constantly evolving. These interests stem from his two years as a clinical researcher at the UC Irvine ALS and Neuromuscular Division. In this role, Siddhant coordinated trials across the full spectrum of rare and ultra-rare neuromuscular disease, including muscular dystrophies, peripheral neuropathies, myositis, myasthenia gravis, and ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). His portfolio spans interventional trials, including some of the first approved therapies for these conditions, and natural history studies that characterize disease progression.

Beyond his trial work, Siddhant helped establish the UC Irvine Biobank, an institution-wide translational research repository housed under the university’s Institute for Clinical & Translational Science. The biobank supports investigators across UCI’s clinical and basic science departments and has enrolled over 1,100 participants across 74 sub-investigators since its launch. Siddhant is committed to bridging clinical care and research, with the goal of becoming an academic neuromuscular physician-scientist dedicated to improving outcomes for patients with rare and underserved diseases.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease that causes loss of muscle function, mobility, and ultimately the ability to breathe. Siddhant’s Fulbright-Nehru project is establishing a comprehensive ALS registry at AIIMS, New Delhi, under the mentorship of Dr. V.Y. Vishnu. For this, he is developing and deploying a smartphone application that allows ALS patients across India to complete monthly assessments from home, as increasing immobility and travel costs make in-person follow-up difficult. The registry will generate longitudinal data on disease progression, help characterize ALS in India, and position India to host future ALS clinical trials.

Mahala Peter-Frank

Mahala Peter-Frank earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where she majored in marine biology; microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics; and European languages and transcultural studies, with a concentration in French and Francophone studies. At UCLA, she began her research career as a research assistant characterizing microbial communities associated with floating algal rafts in the South Pacific. She later conducted independent research investigating the effects of dredging on seagrass-associated microbial communities in the Port of Los Angeles. Mahala has also contributed to research projects at the following institutions: the University of Southern California, where she investigated a novel coral bleaching methodology; at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where she optimized picocyanobacterial collection and DNA extraction protocols; and at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she examined how parasite load influences sunfish coloration. Her long-term goal is to lead international, interdisciplinary research teams focused on marine microbiology and its applications to sustainability initiatives and marine natural product discovery.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar, Mahala is conducting research on the secondary metabolites of polar marine actinomycetes. These microbes are being isolated from Arctic fjord sediment samples and cultivated, then used to produce crude extracts which are being screened for therapeutic potential. Any compounds with anticancer or antimicrobial properties will thus be identified.

Avi Patel

Avi Patel is a recent graduate of Yale University, where he studied the history of science, medicine, and public health; he also had a concentration in global health studies. His research explores how cities, infrastructure, and environmental conditions shape human health; it focuses particularly on mobility, climate, and health equity, such as the case of rapidly growing Global South cities, where climate change, pollution, and unequal access to infrastructure increasingly affect everyday well-being. Across his research and fieldwork, Avi is interested in how urban design and public policy can help build healthier and more inclusive communities. His academic and professional experiences span environmental health research, global health systems, and science communication. Through international collaboration and research, Avi hopes to contribute to more people-centered approaches to urban development and health.

As a Fulbright-Nehru Research Fellow, Avi is studying how air pollution affects physical activity and active mobility in the Delhi National Capital Region. Hosted by IIT Delhi Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Centre under the mentorship of Dr. Rahul Goel, his project is combining geospatial pollution data with time-use and mobility datasets to examine how environmental exposure shapes walking, cycling, and outdoor activity across local neighborhoods and seasons. The project seeks to advance understanding of how environmental conditions influence urban accessibility, public health, and equitable mobility in rapidly urbanizing cities. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate the building of healthier, more equitable, and resilient cities.