USA Fellows Year: U.S. Fellows 2026-2027

Nikita Muthakana

Nikita Muthakana is a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, and a graduate of the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, where she earned a BS in quantitative biology. During her time at UNC, she became deeply interested in both scientific research and education, interests that continue to shape her academic and professional goals. As an undergraduate researcher, Nikita worked in developmental lung biology, studying the role of extracellular matrix proteins in alveolar development through computational approaches. She presented this work in a proteomics-focused talk at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Through these experiences, she has developed a strong appreciation for research and scientific communication.

Outside of research at UNC, Nikita served as an orientation leader for incoming students, coached coed volleyball, and worked as a teaching assistant for calculus, physics, and biology courses. Working closely with students from different backgrounds fueled her passion for teaching and mentorship, thereby strengthening her long-term goal of becoming a professor in higher education. In her free time, Nikita enjoys playing volleyball, making pizza from scratch, and volunteering with a local healthy lifestyle clinic for children. She values all opportunities to form meaningful connections with others.

Nikita’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is investigating apoptosis inhibitor 5 (Api5) as a potential chemoresistance biomarker in Indian patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). She is conducting the project at IISER Pune under the mentorship of Dr. Mayurika Lahiri. The project is analyzing clinical samples to determine whether Api5 overexpression correlates with poor chemotherapy response. By generating one of the first Indian TNBC datasets for Api5, the research aims to support the development of more personalized and genomic-based treatment strategies.

Renee Muthakana

Renee Muthakana is a graduate student at Duke University whose work lies at the intersection of law, policy, and medicine. With a focus on reproductive health systems, her research examines how legal and policy frameworks shape healthcare delivery. Renee is a University of Pittsburgh summa cum laude graduate, where she majored in women’s studies and chemistry.

She has two years of healthcare consulting experience at a leading global consulting firm, where she supported health systems in the areas of operational strategy, policy implementation, and performance improvement. Her research includes peer-reviewed and conference-based work on global in vitro fertilization (IVF) policy frameworks, assisted reproductive technology (ART), AI governance in clinical settings, and the inclusion of pregnant women in research. Recently, she coauthored a peer-reviewed article in BMC Reproductive Health; the article is a comparative analysis of IVF policies across 24 countries and identifies variation in regulatory approaches while highlighting India as a key case for further study due to its rapidly expanding ART market and the evolving regulatory landscape related to it.

Renee’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is examining how India’s ART policies can be strengthened to improve the quality of care. Building on Renee’s recent coauthored publication, her project is conducting a national- and state-level ART policy review, alongside interviews with policymakers, clinicians, and patients, with the aim of generating actionable insights to inform policy development.

Dharani Moorthy

Dharani Moorthy graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BS in molecular and cellular biology in May 2026. His academic and research interests center on infectious disease, diagnostic innovation, and expanding healthcare access for underserved communities. Dharani is a recipient of the Johns Hopkins Provost’s Undergraduate Research Award, one of only 20 undergraduates selected for this competitive funding. At the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, he investigates novel virulence factors in Trypanosoma cruzi and their regulatory mechanisms, using RNA sequencing, bisulfite sequencing, and mouse models to evaluate cardiomyopathy and infection dynamics in cardiomyocytes.

Beyond the lab, Dharani serves as a Hopkins Community Connection Triage Coordinator at Bayview Medical Center. He also writes accessible guides for bmorebenefits.com to help Maryland residents navigate government assistance programs. His research has been published in Nature, Operative Neurosurgery, and the Journal of Epidemiology and Population Health, with his Nature contribution focusing on antigen diversification in Trypanosoma brucei. Outside of research, Dharani is a certified EMT, a head teaching assistant in cognitive science, and a senior staff writer for the Johns Hopkins News-Letter, where he covers Baltimore’s local food scene.

Toxoplasmosis, caused by Toxoplasma gondii, infects over 30 percent of India’s population and can lead to brain inflammation, blindness, and severe outcomes in pregnant and immunocompromised individuals. Current diagnostics often fail to distinguish active infection from past exposure or convey disease severity. For his Fulbright-Nehru project at the Indian Institute of Science Parasite Epigenetics Lab under Dr. Meetali Singh, Dharani is investigating how microRNAs, small molecules that regulate gene activity, change during T. gondii infection in human blood samples. By identifying those miRNAs linked to disease and severity, mapping their target pathways, and testing them in human cell lines, his project aims to lay the groundwork for earlier, more accurate diagnostics and therapies.

Sruti Mohankumar

Sruti Mohankumar is a recent graduate from Texas A&M University, where she earned her BS in psychological and brain sciences with certificates in behavioral health and the psychology of diversity. Throughout her undergraduate years, Sruti was involved in numerous research endeavors that centered on understanding how marginalized communities navigated barriers in education, employment, and access to care.

As a student in Texas A&M University’s Health, Empowerment, & Advocacy Lab (HEAL) led by Dr. Nguyen Nguyen, Sruti coauthored a paper (currently under review) exploring how the role of accents, which are often denoted as a key social marker, influence individuals’ perceptions of their own academic and professional capabilities, especially in a world where English is quickly becoming the dominant language in cross-cultural communication.

Sruti is set to begin her PhD in counseling psychology from Texas Tech University, where she intends to continue examining the intersection of linguistic marginalization and vocational psychology. As a future clinician, she hopes to work closely with South Asian communities, and believes that an immersive experience in India will deepen her understanding of culturally grounded perspectives on mental healthcare and help-seeking.

In her Fulbright-Nehru research project, Sruti is extending her previous research and employing a qualitative interview method to explore the nuanced responses to how regional dialects and accents within India influence both self-perception and social judgment. Given India’s vast linguistic diversity, she is particularly interested in how intranational variation in dialects and accents, which is often overlooked in discussions on language bias, affects educational and vocational outcomes.

Kristen Miller

Kristen Miller is a religious studies PhD candidate at Arizona State University, from where she has a master’s degree. Her research focuses on contemporary religion in northern India using an interdisciplinary approach that combines historical and ethnographic methods. She has presented her research at national and international conferences, including the American Academy of Religion, on topics such as the continued influence of scolonial legacies on contemporary religious practices. Over the last four years, Kristen has been studying Hindi and Urdu. In 2025, she participated in the American Institute of Indian Studies Summer Urdu Language Program in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. Before completing her graduate studies, she had managed several USAID-funded projects in Jordan, Sudan, and Djibouti to promote civil society and gender equality.

Kristen’s Fulbright-Nehru project is focusing on dargah visitation in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Dargahs are grave shrines of blessed Sufi saints. Renowned dargahs often attract millions of visitors annually, both Hindus and Muslims. Kristen’s research is studying how dargahs are productive spaces of meaning-making for visitors. She is particularly interested in urban dargahs as community spaces within rapidly developing Indian cities. Drawing on ethnographic methods, Kristen is conducting participant observation and interviews with dargah visitors to explore a diversity of modes of engagement with urban religious space.

Janaki Menon

Janaki Menon is an undergraduate student at the University of South Florida (USF) pursuing a BS in public health with a minor in biology. Her academic and professional interests center on infectious disease, maternal and child health, and global health equity, with a specific focus on developing culturally grounded, community-based interventions. At the USF Morsani College of Medicine, Janaki has worked as an undergraduate research assistant in both the Ho Lab and the Mindsets in Motion Lab, where she has contributed to research at the intersection of health behavior, clinical outcomes, and patient-centered care. In a microbiology laboratory setting, she has conducted independent work identifying bacterial species, including Staphylococcus epidermidis, thereby strengthening her laboratory and analytical skills.

In addition to her research experience, Janaki has served as a certified medical assistant, gaining hands-on clinical experience and exposure to patient care. She has also interned at Meliora Health, where she worked closely with children with autism and ADHD, further deepening her understanding of developmental and behavioral health. These experiences have shaped her commitment to improving healthcare accessibility for vulnerable populations, particularly children.

Janaki’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is evaluating the cultural responsiveness and effectiveness of the Kochi Intervention for Tobacco Smoke-Free Homes (KIFT) initiative in Kerala, India. Using qualitative and community-based methods, her project is examining how cultural norms, household dynamics, and gender roles influence the adoption and sustainability of smoke-free home interventions. The study aims to identify barriers and facilitators to behavioral change and generate insights to improve culturally tailored public health strategies. Ultimately, the project seeks to strengthen the intervention’s design and contribute to reducing secondhand smoke exposure in vulnerable populations.

Anya Martin

Anya Martin is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of social science, artificial intelligence, and meteorology. She received her master’s degree in machine learning from UCLA, and is currently pursuing a doctorate in human-centered computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. Her work focuses on infrastructural and human factors in AI/ML applications at a time when AI/ML methods are moving outside of their traditional homes in tech companies. But in this shift and expansion, AI/ML methods are forced to reckon with “alien” infrastructures of data, compute, and trust. This is perhaps most clearly seen with meteorology, where data interoperability is founded on physical law, and where model “trust” is hotly contested given the high-stakes nature of disaster prediction. Anya is studying how these epistemologies of large-scale data interact as it is crucial for understanding where AI/ML methods succeed and fail.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Anya is examining how AI is being used to predict the weather in India. Meteorology is a physics-based “big data” science reliant on massive data and compute infrastructures to effectively model the atmosphere. This project aims to understand how these infrastructures work with the new AI/ML methods developed over the last few years, most notably the 2022–2023 AI weather models developed using (almost exclusively) tech company data and compute infrastructure. Anya’s ethnographic work to capture this crucial phase will not only inform AI transition but also provide a critical case study for the effective use of AIs.

Nandini Krishnamoorthy

Nandini Krishnamoorthy received her BA in community health from Tufts University in May 2026. Having grown up in Mumbai and later moving to the United States for college, she is particularly interested in understanding how social, environmental, and structural factors shape health across different communities and contexts.

During her time at Tufts, she explored the intersections of clinical medicine, public health, and research. Alongside clinical work as a medical assistant, she contributed to research projects spanning global mental health, HIV medication adherence, maternal health equity, and global clinical research ethics. As a Tufts Laidlaw Scholar, Nandini conducted a qualitative research project examining mental health in urban informal settlements in Mumbai, India. She has also held research and internship positions with the Fenway Institute, Boston Medical Center, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Center for Global Health Equity, the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard, and the Tufts University School of Medicine.

Outside of her academic and professional work, Nandini was a member of a competitive dance team and has been actively involved in South Asian advocacy and affinity spaces. She also loves to read, crochet/knit, and sing.

Nandini’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is a qualitative study of perinatal mental health in Mandala, an informal settlement in Mumbai. Building on the work of Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), a local organization, she is collaborating with community members and “barefoot” researchers to examine how women understand distress, seek support, and navigate care.

Arushi Kende

Arushi Kende is a recent graduate from Cornell University, where she studied Asian studies and pursued research interests in seva, altruism, ecological ethics, and community-based models of care. Her work focuses on how Indian religious communities cultivate self-sustaining cultures of service, especially through practices such as free kitchens, farmer support, elder care, forest schools, and other forms of community-led relief. For her honors assignment, she conducted ethnographic fieldwork across Maharashtra and Uttarakhand, visiting 15 ashrams and seva projects to study how service is practiced as both a spiritual discipline and as a social framework.

Arushi was involved in interfaith and service initiatives at Cornell, where she was president of Hindu YUVA and an interfaith ambassador. Her community education work spans both practical and academic forms of teaching, from leading cooking and local sustainability lessons for community members to supporting elementary students in reading and high school students in essay writing. Her broader interests include sant literature, Indic educational and service traditions, ecological connection, rural sustainability, and the relationship between religion and social change. Through her scholarship and service work, she aims to build mutual exchange between India and the United States around compassionate, resilient, and regenerative forms of altruism.

Building on her earlier exploratory fieldwork, Arushi’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining seva not simply as “selfless service,” but as a cultivated moral and social form. Through sustained ethnographic research among selected religious communities in Maharashtra, she is studying how seva is reproduced through discipline, storytelling, communal labor, devotional practice, institutional life, and personal narrative. The project is delving into how sevaks negotiate self-effacement and agency, how communities sustain non-market obligations without reducing service to debt or patronage, and how recipients interpret care as charity, grace, kinship, reciprocity, or participation in a shared moral world.