Meet Our USA Fulbrighters Archive

James Agbodzakey

Dr. James Agbodzakey is a professor of public leadership/administration and the director of the Urban SERCH Institute at the University of North Texas (UNT) at Dallas. He has worked extensively for governments and private and nonprofit entities in Africa, U.S., and the Caribbean on various projects and programs. He has championed efforts in the areas of public health, management, public affairs, economics, and sustainable development through his work with numerous prestigious institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and Florida Atlantic University. His public management and health services research using the collaborative governance framework has helped shape policies and strategies as a conduit to promoting the health and general well-being of target populations at the local and regional levels across the U.S. He recently served on the American Society for Public Administration’s Executive Committee and its National Council, and was the president of the Conference of Minority Public Administrators (COMPA).

Dr. Agbodzakey has participated in over 80 academic conferences, has made over 70 academic presentations, and has at least 50 peer-reviewed academic publications to his credit. Recently, as a section editor, he facilitated the publication of 200 authors in Springer’s Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance. He currently serves on three editorial boards and four governance boards. His extensive experiences related to scholarship, curriculum development, accreditation, program building, the nonprofit sector, and community engagement have seen him excel as a specialist and consultant. He was a delegate for the AIDS conferences held in Washington D.C., Melbourne, Durban, Amsterdam, Montreal, and Munich. He was also a delegate for the tenth IAS Conference on HIV Science in Mexico City.

Dr. Agbodzakey has received outstanding faculty awards from the University of the Bahamas and UNT Dallas. He has won Florida Atlantic University’s National Association of Graduate-Professional Students Award and the Gwendolyn Bullock-Smith Public Service Award from COMPA. He is also the first Black faculty to be promoted to the rank of full professor at UNT Dallas.

Dr. Agbodzakey is committed to working with various stakeholders to help address the complex contemporary challenges in the area of public benefits related to inclusive excellence.

V.M. Balasubramaniam

Dr. V.M. Balasubramaniam is the Koehler–Ayres Professor of Food Processing and Sustainable Food Manufacturing Systems in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Georgia (UGA), Griffin, GA. Prior to joining UGA, he served as professor of food engineering at Ohio State University (2002–2025) and as a faculty member at the National Center for Food Safety and Technology, Illinois Institute of Technology (1995–2002). He also holds an emeritus professorship from Ohio State University.

Dr. Balasubramaniam’s research advances engineering-based multidisciplinary approaches for developing next-generation sustainable food manufacturing and sanitation technologies that enhance pathogen reduction while preserving nutritional quality. He also contributes to food waste reduction through valorization and circular bioeconomy concepts.

Dr. Balasubramaniam has provided extensive leadership services, including as chair, past chair, and secretary of the nonthermal processing and food engineering divisions of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). Since 2000, he has been actively involved with the IFT–EFFoST International Nonthermal Processing Workshop Committee.

Dr. Balasubramaniam’s laboratory has mentored over 30 graduate students and 20 visiting scholars. He has authored more than 180 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, four books, and over 270 professional presentations. His contributions have been recognized with numerous honors, including the 2021 IFT Research and Development Award.

Devin K. Harris

Dr. Devin Harris is professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Virginia (UVA). He is also a member of UVA’s Link Lab, a leading research center focused on cyber-physical systems. He earned his BS in civil engineering from the University of Florida and his MS and PhD from Virginia Tech. His research centers on large-scale civil infrastructure systems with an emphasis on smart cities and technology integration. His work spans image-based measurement techniques, virtual and augmented reality, crowdsourcing, artificial intelligence, data analytics, structural health monitoring, and the use of innovative materials in infrastructure. Recently, his research advanced applications of digital twins and immersive technologies in civil infrastructure and engineering education. Through these efforts, Dr. Harris seeks to enhance resilience, sustainability, and the role of emerging technologies in shaping future infrastructure systems.

Millard Keith

Dr. Ladd Keith is an associate professor in the School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, director of the Heat Resilience Initiative, associate research professor at the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, and a distinguished scholar at the University of Arizona. His transdisciplinary research focuses on heat planning, policy, and governance to help increase the heat resilience of communities, regions, and nations across the world. He is the University of Arizona lead of the U.S. Department of Energy-funded Southwest Urban Corridor Integrated Field Laboratory (SW-IFL); the heat research lead of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-funded Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS); co-investigator of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE); and co-investigator of the U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded Southwest Center on Resilience for Climate Change and Health (SCORCH). Dr. Keith also serves on the Management Committee for the Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN), a World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization joint initiative to protect global populations from the health risks of extreme heat. He has a PhD in arid lands resource sciences and an MS in planning from the University of Arizona.

Claire Wulfman

Claire Wulfman holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Vermont and recently completed her master’s in public health from the University of Utah. Her academic path has been shaped by her curiosity and drive to create more equitable systems of care. As an undergraduate, she was involved in student government, biomedical research, collegiate athletics, and tutoring in writing. All through her master’s program, Claire contributed to a nationwide sleep study by coordinating participant recruitment and conducting cognitive assessments. She has served as a health educator with the Planned Parenthood’s Teen Council Program and has also been a counselor for sexual assault victims; besides, she was a community outreach assistant with the Utah Coalition Against Sexual Assault. For her practicum, Claire traveled to Peru to study family planning beliefs and behaviors.

As a community outreach officer on the Student Advisory Committee, Claire organized volunteer initiatives and policy engagement events for fellow graduate students. She has also contributed to research on sexual and reproductive health and rights in India. Her capstone project explored how gender norms affect stress and mental health among college-aged men; this built on her broader interest in social constructs of masculinity and gender-based violence. Claire’s interdisciplinary interests bridge public health, gender equity, and social justice. Her passion for addressing gender-based violence stems from her experience supporting survivors, promoting prevention, and researching the role of masculinities. Outside of academics and work, Claire finds joy in poetry, cooking, and spending time in the mountains.

Claire’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining how NGOs based in Mumbai are engaging with men and boys on the topic of public-space sexual harassment (PSH). Working with these local organizations, Claire is assessing how concepts of masculinity, gender roles, and safety are communicated and implemented. Through interviews, field observations, and policy analysis, her research aims to identify effective strategies to promote gender equity and inform future interventions to address PSH in India and beyond.

Ray Wipfli

Ray Wipfli holds a BS in molecular biophysics and biochemistry with a concentration in medicine from Yale University. In addition to his primary undergraduate degree, he received a certificate in global health studies through the selective Yale Jackson Institute’s Global Health Scholars Program. He already has over a decade of experience working in global health through his nonprofit organization, Energy in Action, which specializes in youth-targeted interventions in Uganda. Through this organization, of which he is both the founder and the chief executive officer, he has led countless public health interventions concerning sanitation and hygiene, sexual and reproductive health, and prevention of drowning. Furthermore, he has facilitated and published multiple research studies examining health knowledge and behaviors in Ugandan youth. Ray is interested in forging strong international connections to further the mission of health across the world, with a specific focus on youth and non-communicable diseases.

Ray’s Fulbright-Nehru project is to conduct an evaluation of the updated Kids and Diabetes in School (KiDS) campaign in New Delhi, India. The campaign targets the rapidly rising health and economic burden of diabetes in India, home to the world’s second highest number of diabetic patients. The research seeks to inform future health policy related to adolescents.

Megha Vemuri

Megha Vemuri received her BS in computation and cognition and in linguistics and philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in May 2025. Her academic and research interests center on the neurobiology of language and its developmental foundations. She worked as an undergraduate research assistant in various neuroscience labs throughout her time in the university. Her early research spanned both assistive technology and interspecies communication. At the Senseable Intelligence Lab, she worked on Mumble Melody, a mobile application serving as a free, accessible alternative to assistive technology for people who stutter. Building on this interest in social connection, she co-led a novel study in interspecies communication, designing and analyzing a video-calling system for socially isolated parrots. The work received press coverage and an honorable mention at the 2023 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. In 2024, she conducted infant neuroimaging research in South Africa with the Neurodevelopment Group at the University of Cape Town, using EEG and portable MRI to identify early brain development biomarkers in low-resource settings. For the last two years, she has been working in the EvLab at MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, on fMRI projects focused on multilingualism, heritage speakers, and language processing, many of which serve to diversify neurolinguistics data.

In her Fulbright-Nehru project, Megha is examining the neural signatures of individuals who acquired three or more languages at a young age. The fMRI study is being conducted at the National Brain Research Centre in Gurugram under Dr. Arpan Banerjee. Using fMRI methods adapted from the EvLab, the study is addressing a critical gap in neurolinguistics by examining an understudied population between bilinguals and polyglots. By collecting and analyzing brain imaging data from 80–90 participants, the project seeks to diversify language research by studying underrepresented profiles. The findings and materials will contribute to global cognitive science and support future language-related studies in South Asia, particularly in developmental contexts.

Rushil Vashee

Rushil Vashee earned a B.S., summa cum laude, in international political economy from Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service in 2025. He was awarded the Dean’s Medal for earning the highest cumulative GPA in the school. As a part of his senior thesis, awarded departmental honors, Rushil created an original database on international lending to analyze why some countries rejected international assistance during COVID-19.

During his time at Georgetown, Rushil held multiple internships, including at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, the Edunomics Lab, and Howard University’s Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. Rushil also spent a semester in Ecuador at Universidad San Francisco de Quito, where he was a research assistant in the Laboratory of Computational and Experimental Economics. Rushil’s time in Ecuador, shaped by conversations with his host family, classmates, and locals, deepened his curiosity about how social dynamics shape access to opportunity in urban economies.

Beyond academic and policy work, Rushil is an experienced journalist. He has published over 100 articles about the National Football League for USA TODAY Sports. A holder of a journalism minor from Georgetown University, Rushil spent his capstone semester interviewing NFL players and agents to examine the post-career narratives of professional athletes. He has also served as a senior coordinator of Georgetown Rangila, the largest charity dance showcase in the United States, with over 400 participants every year. As coordinator, he helped raise a record sum of $86,000 for a Nepali nonprofit to sponsor 300 years of girls’ education and to renovate a science lab and a school library. For his leadership skills, Rushil received the Martha Swanson Outstanding Senior Leader Award at Georgetown University.

Rushil’s Fulbright-Nehru research project investigates the determinants of digital financial inclusion in India. Using nationally representative survey data, Rushil constructs indices of digital skills and digital usage to model how individuals progress through a sequential adoption pathway from basic device access to active UPI-based payments. His analysis identifies where and for whom the largest gaps in economic access emerge, with particular attention to disparities by gender, urban-rural location, and social group. Combined with fieldwork across the country, Rushil aims to produce actionable insights on the behavioral and structural factors that shape who participates in India’s digital economy and what it will take to bring the next wave of users into the fold.

Nundini Varshney

Nundini Varshney is a public health advocate and aspiring physician with a strong background in clinical research, health education, and community-based initiatives. She graduated cum laude in human biology and with a minor in business from the University of California San Diego. Her academic foundation is complemented by extensive clinical research experience across Southern California, where she has contributed to studies focused on Alzheimer’s dementia, anemia in chronic kidney disease, and novel cancer therapies targeting genetic mutations.

In parallel with her scientific work, Nundini has led efforts to increase access to life-saving education and resources. She is the founder of a student-led organization that has trained over 4,000 middle- and high-school students in CPR and AED (automated external defribillator) usage. Her advocacy work has contributed to the development and co-sponsorship of legislation mandating annual CPR and AED training for students and teachers across California.

Her interests lie at the intersection of medicine, policy, and education, particularly in the fields of cancer prevention, adolescent health, and reproductive justice. With a commitment to serving marginalized populations and a deep appreciation for culturally informed care, Nundini seeks to bridge the gap between science and community impact. She aims to pursue a career in oncology that integrates clinical care, research, and advocacy to advance health equity at both local and global levels.

Nundini’s Fulbright-Nehru public health project in Rajasthan is focusing on improving adolescent awareness of cervical cancer and increasing the HPV vaccination uptake. In collaboration with Mahatma Gandhi University of Medical Sciences and Technology, she is surveying students, parents, and educators in Jaipur, Rajasthan, to identify gaps in reproductive health education, particularly omissions related to HPV and cervical cancer in national guidelines. The project is also developing context-sensitive interventions shaped by cultural, gender, and economic factors. Nundini will use her findings to deliver evidence-based policy recommendations to support equitable vaccine access across state-funded health systems.

Radha Varadan

Bridging the gap between the classical arts and academia, Radha Varadan is an emerging creative artist deeply dedicated to the evolution of the traditional dance form of Kathak. A graduate of George Washington University where she held the presidential merit scholarship for excellence in dance, Radha’s academic and artistic background spans a comprehensive range. Trained from a young age in classical ballet, Kathak, and later pursuing her degree in postmodern dance, Radha is a professional Kathak artist under the tutelage of Smt. Nirupama Rajendra and Sri. T.D. Rajendra. Simultaneously, she holds a degree in the biological sciences, and has conducted and published extensive research in molecular biology and immunology.

Much like her background, Radha’s professional and creative works span countries and cultures. She has been recognized internationally for her innovative work in translating classical ballet variations into the traditional Kathak vocabulary, and for her research on the mechanisms of the injuries most commonly experienced by practitioners of Indian classical dance. In 2024, Radha received the Maida Withers Award for Originality and Risk in Performance Art. She is also the recipient of several grants supporting her research in the molecular biological sciences.

Aside from her academic and creative endeavors, Radha is an accomplished performing artist. She has performed solo worldwide at prestigious dance festivals, including the New York Kathak Festival, the North Carolina Kathak Festival, the Youth Festival organized by IFAA San Diego, and the Au-Delà des Préjugés Festival in Switzerland. Radha also performs for the renowned Abhinava Dance Company, where she continues to deepen her study of traditional Indian arts.

While scholarship in the field of dance injuries is rapidly growing, the information that is available is almost entirely geared toward Western ballet and modern dance forms. Radha’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is addressing this disparity by integrating ancient anatomical knowledge documented in the Natya Shastra with existing Western-centric research. In doing so, the academic fields of injury prevention and kinesiology broaden in the pursuit of cultural equity and access to health information.