Archives: Meet Our USA Fulbrighters

Ashley Walsdorf

Dr. Ashley Walsdorf is an assistant professor of couple and family therapy at Alliant International University. She received her PhD in human development, family science, marriage, and family therapy from the University of Georgia in 2019, with a specialization in immigration policy and working with multicultural communities. In addition to her work at Alliant, Dr. Walsdorf is a licensed, bilingual marriage and family therapist and an AAMFT-approved supervisor in the state of Texas, the director of family programming at a residential treatment center, and a research affiliate of the Latino Research Institute at the University of Texas at Austin. Clinically, she has been practicing therapy in English and Spanish with individuals, couples, and families for nearly 15 years, specializing in work with immigrant families, multicultural communities, and addiction and recovery. Her research has examined ethnic-racial socialization, the effects of U.S. socio-political climate on mental health among Latino communities, affirmative clinical work with LGBTQ communities, and critical race theories. She has authored over 25 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and presented her work at more than 50 national and international conferences. Dr. Walsdorf’s connection to India and international work is both professional and personal: her husband and stepdaughter are from Kerala, and her blended, cross-cultural family informs her commitment to systemic and culturally responsive family therapy. She loves traveling and cooking with her family and eating her mother-in-law’s seriously spicy food.

Dr. Walsdorf’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining the relevance of systemic family therapy in the South Indian context. Based at Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in Kochi, Kerala, she is collaborating with graduate students and faculty in psychology and social work through coursework and participatory research that assess Western family therapy theories and models for “cultural fit”, while developing adaptations for local family and community contexts. Her project aims to create culturally responsive frameworks that strengthen the relational elements of mental health education while honoring South Indian social and familial dynamics, in addition to fostering India–U.S. academic partnerships.

Rohini Iyengar Vadapalli

Dr. Rohini Iyengar Vadapalli is an art historian and an academician. Apart from research and teaching, she engages in curatorial practice. She obtained her PhD in art history from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India. She has significant experience in teaching art history courses at several universities and colleges in India and the U.S. She has also presented her research at various national and international conferences.

Her primary research focuses on regional aesthetics and the various factors affecting the nuances of regional artistic identities. A secondary area of interest is the premodern visual traditions of India. Her publications include exhibition catalogues, magazines, peer-reviewed essays in art journals, and edited textbooks on art and art history.

Dr. Vadapalli’s Fulbright-Nehru project is tracing the development of twenty-first-century visual arts in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in India as well as New Jersey and New York in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. by drawing some compelling parallels between the living folk traditions of both the regions. The study is comparing and contrasting these two regions based on the economic-technological and politico-religious aspects affecting the arts. Her research is also highlighting the importance of AI in various art spheres. The project aims to enable the introduction of new courses on regional contemporary art and curatorial studies in New Jersey and New York, as well as courses on the “histories of regional modern Indian art” in academic institutions. It also holds interdisciplinary relevance for furthering scholarship on American regionalism studies. Further, it would provide database for art historians to conduct research both in the U.S. and India. Most significantly, this project is expected to contribute immensely to the field of art history.

Deodutta Roy

Prof. Deodutta Roy is a professor emeritus at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work at Florida International University (FIU), Miami. He joined FIU as a professor in 2004 and served as the founding chairman of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health from 2005 to 2011. Prior to FIU, he was a tenured professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (1998–2004). His leadership in building the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at FIU established him as a key figure in public health academia.

Nationally and internationally recognized for advancing translational exposomics –bridging genome, exposome, and environmental public health – Prof. Roy has received several prestigious awards, including the Junior Faculty Development Award from the American Cancer Society, the Scholar Award in Cancer Research from the American Association for Cancer Research, and the Fulbright Senior Scholar Award. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and monographs, and holds two patents. He has trained 15 doctoral students and numerous postdoctoral fellows. His work has garnered over 6,000 citations on ResearchGate, underscoring the breadth of his scholarly influence.

Prof. Roy has been at the forefront of exposomics research, exploring how environmental DNA and RNA can serve as records of the human exposome, and can help in understanding the environmental causes of chronic diseases. His work integrates machine learning and bioinformatics to analyze complex, multi-omics datasets, and advancing computational approaches to environmental health sciences, brain health, and cancer research.

Dr. Roy’s Fulbright-Nehru project is integrating teaching, curriculum development, and collaborative research to advance environmental public health education and exposomics research at Amity University, Haryana. Focusing on the air quality in the Delhi National Capital Region, it is exploring links between environmental DNA and early brain health. The curriculum incorporates exposomic methods and analytical tools, alongside holding of workshops and boot camps. By addressing the challenges of air pollution and neurodevelopmental risks in children, the project aims to build institutional exposomics capacity and fulfill the Fulbright mission by fostering academic collaborations between the United States and India.

Sreejayan Nair

Dr. Sreejayan Nair, PhD, MPharm, FAHA, is professor of pharmacology, chair of the Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and director of the Biomedical Sciences PhD Program at the University of Wyoming, and also serves as the pharmacology thread lead for the WWAMI Medical School, overseeing integrated pharmacology education for medical students. He received his PhD from the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Manipal, India, and completed his postdoctoral training at the Department of Medicine II, Klinikum Grosshadern, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Germany, and the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, U.S. Dr. Nair has over 30 years of experience in pharmacology education, translational research, and mentorship, with his research focusing on protease biology and translational therapeutics for diabetes complications, cardiovascular disease, and neuroinflammation. He has led projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the American Heart Association (AHA), and the American Diabetes Association (ADA), and has received multiple industry grants, supporting both basic discovery and translational applications. He has also authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications. A co-founder of two pharmaceutical start-ups, Dr. Nair holds patents in protease-targeted therapeutics, and has served as the principal investigator on NIH SBIR/STTR grants for bridging academic research and commercial innovation. He also serves as the mentoring director for the WY-NIH Sensory Biology COBRE, providing structured guidance to junior faculty. His teaching has been consistently recognized with honors such as the Ellbogen Meritorious Classroom Teaching Award and the Entrepreneur Award at the National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence. He has also contributed to the training of PhD, postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students.

Dr. Nair’s Fulbright-Nehru project is integrating teaching and research to enhance pharmacology education and translational drug discovery at BITS Hyderabad. As part of the project, he is teaching a molecular pharmacology course, mentoring graduate students, and collaborating on molecular pharmacology/drug discovery projects related to diabetes complications and neuroinflammation. By combining classroom instruction with hands-on research and mentoring, the project aims to strengthen student training, support BITS’s PhD-IMPACT/DRIVE initiatives, and foster long-term Indo-U.S. collaborations in pharmacology and therapeutic innovation.

Suraj Muley

Dr. Suraj Muley is a neurologist and internationally recognized expert in neuromuscular medicine, neuroimmunology, myasthenia gravis, and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). He serves as director of neurology at Bob Bové Neuroscience Institute at HonorHealth and is professor of medicine at Arizona State University School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering. Dr. Muley completed his medical education at Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College, Mumbai, which was followed by research training in pharmacology and residency and fellowship training in neurology, clinical neurophysiology, and neuromuscular diseases at the University of Minnesota. He is board certified in neurology, clinical neurophysiology, and neuromuscular medicine.

Over a distinguished academic career spanning more than three decades, Dr. Muley has held major leadership roles at the University of Minnesota, Barrow Neurological Institute, and HonorHealth, including directing neuromuscular, neuroimmunology, fellowship, and residency programs. His clinical and research interests focus on immune-mediated neuromuscular disorders, with emphasis on novel targeted therapies for myasthenia gravis and CIDP. He has served as principal investigator or co-investigator on numerous national and international clinical trials in neuromuscular diseases.

Dr. Muley has authored and co-authored numerous peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, invited reviews, and international presentations in neuromuscular medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN), Fellow of the American College of Physicians (FACP), and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (FRCP Edin). His honors include multiple teaching and research awards.

Dr. Muley’s Fulbright-Nehru project is focusing on advancing neuromuscular medicine and neuroimmunology in India through collaborative teaching, research, and clinical training. Working with leading academic medical centers in Mumbai, his project emphasizes inflammatory neuropathies and myasthenia gravis, with particular focus on advanced electrophysiological techniques and emerging targeted therapies. The project aims to strengthen subspecialty education, promote collaborative clinical research, and develop sustainable academic partnerships between Indian and U.S. institutions. By leveraging India’s large and diverse patient population, the project seeks to improve understanding and treatment of immune-mediated neurological disorders while fostering long-term global collaboration in neuroscience.

Chiara Logli

Prof. Chiara Logli is an assistant professor and institutional assessment specialist at Honolulu Community College, Hawai‘i. Her research centers on international and comparative education. She holds an MA in political science from the University of Bologna (Italy) and a PhD in educational foundations/international cultural studies from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She has worked at the International House at University of California (UC) Berkeley and at the UC Santa Barbara Multicultural Center, and has taught college-level courses in the U.S. and Indonesia. Her project experience includes USAID, UNICEF, UNDP, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, CAST/International Baccalaureate Schools, and the Italian consulate. She is a recipient of fellowships from the East-West Center, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program, the United States–Indonesia Society, the Rotary International Peace Program, and the European Union’s Erasmus/Leonardo Program.

For her Fulbright-Nehru project, Dr. Logli is teaching courses on qualitative research design and also conducting a study on how Indian universities contribute to higher education by balancing local and global allegiances. Her research is centered on place-based approaches that shape institutional identity while offering insights for broader international contexts. Dr. Logli is particularly interested in India as it sustains a complex higher education system marked by both ancient legacies and forward-looking innovations. Through teaching, research, and collaboration with faculty and students, the project is contributing to ongoing conversations on higher education across borders. The project will culminate in a comparative study of higher education systems in the world’s largest democracies: India, the United States, and Indonesia.

Aesha John

Dr. Aesha John is a professor of social work at Texas Christian University (TCU), where she teaches courses on care across the lifespan and an elective on grief and loss. Her scholarship focuses on disability, inclusion, parenting, and children’s media use, with a particular emphasis on understanding the lived experiences of families of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).

Dr. John’s research spans multiple cultural contexts, including the United States and India. Her work aims to advance culturally responsive frameworks that center family strengths, improve service delivery, and promote inclusive practices. Her recent work examines children’s media use and parent–child relationships, highlighting how digital engagement intersects with family dynamics and children’s social–emotional development.

Her research has been widely published in leading journals on IDD, including the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders and the Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities. She has received the Disability Manuscript Award from the Council on Social Work Education and the Deans’ Award for Research and Creativity from TCU. She has also received grant funding twice from the Jerry M.D. Lewis Foundation, most recently to support her study on children’s media use and parent–child relationships.

Beyond research and teaching, Dr. John is committed to community engagement and experiential learning. She has led a book club for individuals with IDD and facilitated a job training program for individuals with IDD on the TCU campus. She regularly creates opportunities for her students to engage with vulnerable populations in the community, thereby fostering meaningful, relationship-centered learning experiences that bridge classroom knowledge with real-world practice.

Dr. John’s Fulbright-Nehru project is combining teaching and research to advance cross-cultural understanding of parenting and IDD. She is delivering modules on IDD and lifespan development to psychology and social work students at Christ University, Bengaluru. Her research is also examining parental reactions to their children’s autism diagnosis. Further, she is exploring how families understand, process, and adapt to a diagnosis across cultural contexts, with the aim of informing culturally sensitive, family-centered support and interventions.

Joris Gielen

Dr. Joris Gielen is the Eugene P. Beard Endowed Chair in Professional Ethics and the director of the Center for Global Health Ethics at Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, where he also serves as associate professor. His work focuses on the ethical, cultural, and spiritual dimensions of serious illness and end-of-life care, and his scholarly interests include global bioethics, end-of-life decision-making, and spirituality and cultural competence in healthcare. His academic training covers history, religious studies, theology, and Indian philosophy. He has an MA in Indian philosophy and religion from Banaras Hindu University and a PhD in theology from the University of Leuven, Belgium.

In his international and interdisciplinary career, Dr. Gielen has conducted extensive fieldwork in healthcare in India. His scholarship includes numerous peer-reviewed publications on palliative care, spirituality, ethics, and cultural competence in Indian healthcare, with his articles appearing in the Indian Journal of Palliative Care, Journal of Religion and Health, Palliative & Supportive Care, and Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. He is also the editor of Dealing with Bioethical Issues in a Globalized World: Normativity in Bioethics (Springer, 2020). He has taught widely in the United States, Belgium, and India, offering graduate and undergraduate courses on different aspects of healthcare ethics, empirical methods, and culturally competent care.

Dr. Gielen’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining how patients, families, and clinicians in India navigate end-of-life decision-making. It is exploring the ethical tensions between autonomy, traditional values, and legal regulations within India’s healthcare system. By using participant observation and semi-structured interviews in New Delhi, the study is developing a grounded theory to explain the dynamics when decisions regarding the end of life are made. The project aims to foster understanding of end-of-life decision-making and contribute to the bioethics discourse through culturally responsive research and teaching.

David Gere

Dr. David Gere, PhD, is the director of the Art & Global Health Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He founded the center in 2006. He is also a professor in UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, where he teaches courses on art and global health. His book How to Make Dances in an Epidemic (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004) received the award for outstanding book publication from the Congress on Research in Dance. It was also nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and received a special citation from the Society of Dance History Scholars. His co-edited volumes include Looking Out: Perspectives on Dance and Criticism in a Multicultural World (1995); Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader (2003); and Through Positive Eyes (2019). In the visual art world, Dr. Gere has co-curated four major exhibitions and took them to multiple locations in South Africa – the Durban Art Gallery, Museum Africa in Johannesburg, and the Slave Lodge in Cape Town – as well as the Fowler Museum at UCLA. He studied music, dance, and the Tamil language in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, on an Oberlin Shansi Fellowship from 1980 to 1982 and, in 2004, was based in Bengaluru as a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar.

Nearly 50 years ago, Dr. Gere taught ethical studies and organized arts programs at the American College in Madurai. Now, as the founding director of UCLA’s Art & Global Health Center, he is revisiting, as part of his Fulbright-Nehru project, the arts of South India with a special emphasis on the programs and projects intended to improve health and save lives. Alongside his research, he is sharing ideas generated from his experience in art and global health with the students and faculty in India.

Vanessa Botelho

Prof. Vanessa Botelho is an associate professor of broadcast and digital journalism at the City University of New York’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. She is also the director of the TV news and digital specialization within the master’s in journalism program. Prof. Botelho is a two-time Emmy Award-winning live television news producer. For nearly three decades, she produced hundreds of hours of live breaking news programs for millions of viewers in the largest media market in the United States, New York City. She is also a former executive producer, who helped launch a television news station in Boston, Massachusetts, for NBC. She is a visiting scholar at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing at Oxford University’s Wolfson College. Prof. Botelho is also a writing instructor for the Oxford Writing Mentors. She has received the prestigious Tow fellowship to support her historical memoir that blends her Anglo-Indian identity with her experience in the fast-paced world of live television news, as well as her family’s immigration experience leaving Calcutta, India, for Brooklyn, New York, in the late 1970s.

She received her master’s degree in biography and memoir from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and her bachelor’s degree in communication arts and journalism from New York Institute of Technology.

For her Fulbright-Nehru teaching and research project, Prof. Botelho is collaborating with Dr. Avishek Parui and Dr. Merin Simi Raj at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in Chennai. She is conducting research for her historical memoir at IIT Madras’ Centre for Memory Studies. Her research is also based in Kolkata, where she was born. Focusing on the Anglo-Indian communities of Chennai and Calcutta, she is exploring the facets of identity and memory in postcolonial India. As part of her project, she is also teaching video journalism to graduate students at IIT Madras, demonstrating to them the importance of ethical journalism and how it is key to telling the stories of the underserved.