IIMB scholar receives Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship for research

Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) doctoral scholar Indu Poornima has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship 2026-27. It is a highly competitive international fellowship that acknowledges and supports outstanding doctoral research by Indian scholars.

Indu, a fifth-year PhD student in the Public Policy area will use the fellowship to continue her dissertation research at the Saxena Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University in the United States.

She is researching how large infrastructure projects reshape the lives of communities that depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. Her research centers on Vizhinjam, a coastal community in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram district, where India's first deep-water transshipment port is currently being developed through a public-private partnership.

The release reads, "Using ethnographic methods, she studies how the local fishing community has experienced and adapted to changing livelihood conditions in the wake of the port's development. Her research also explores how community members engage with and negotiate the interests of state institutions and private actors as they navigate these transitions."

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Her work is part of her phD in public policy at the Indian Institute of Management under the supervision of Dr Arpit Shah. Her doctoral committee also includes Prof. Deepak Malghan from Public Policy and Prof. Shailendra Kumar from the Strategy area.

“I firmly believe that Indu's work has the potential to make a pathbreaking contribution to studies of how structural transformations driven by major infrastructure projects can impact local actors and economies,” Shah said.

Poornima did her postgraduate studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.

She is the daughter of CR Sasidharan, who is a retired headmaster and executive member of Trivandrum Taluk library executive council, and V Vasanthakumari, retired higher secondary school principal and career counsellor.

Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship

The Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Fellowship is among the most sought-after fellowships available to Indian doctoral candidates. It provides scholars with opportunities to undertake advanced research at leading institutions in the United States while fostering academic collaboration and knowledge exchange.

Indu's selection highlights the growing relevance of research that examines the social and livelihood impacts of large-scale infrastructure projects and their implications for local communities.