Fellowship News

The Mittal Institute is excited to announce the release of the 2025–26 Year in Review report. As every year, the comprehensive Year in Review Report includes updates on all major faculty-led programs, lists awards and fellowships, highlights the work of students, student organizations, and scholars, and summarizes events and other achievements. The report offers valuable insights into the institute's mission of connecting Harvard and South Asia. 

Dr. Animesh Bag, the Mittal Institute's Raghunathan Family Fellow, is exploring how American print culture shaped perceptions of India and Indian immigrants in the early twentieth century. He is working with Prof. Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History and Affairs, Harvard University Department of History. Dr. Bag's research examines newspapers, magazines, missionary publications, and revolutionary writings to trace how ideas about race, immigration, and belonging were produced and challenged across borders. We spoke with Bag about what brought him to this research, what he is uncovering in the archives, and what these histories can tell us about race, migration, and representation today.

With a background in Public Administration and climate governance, Dr. Md Mafizur Rahman is examining how policies and institutions shape responses to climate change in Bangladesh. As a Mittal Family Climate Fellow at the Mittal Institute, he is working with Prof. Dustin Tingley, Thomas D. Cabot Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Government, to explore these questions. Dr. Rahman brings together perspectives from political ecology and environmental justice to better understand how climate policies affect different communities and connect questions of governance to the lived realities of people experiencing environmental change. We spoke with him about his work and his hopes for his Harvard fellowship. 

Dr. Thiyagaraj Gurunathan is the Jamnalal Kaniram Bajaj Fellow for Fall 2026, working with Prof. David Jones, A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine and Chair of the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. An early-career researcher at the intersection of health humanities and cultural studies, his work examines the cultural meanings of contagion in South Asia, particularly in India, with a focus on caste, disease, and outbreak narratives. During his fellowship at Harvard, he is drawing on his background in literature and cultural studies to advance his research toward the history of medicine. We spoke with Dr. Gurunathan about his research and his hopes for his fellowship. 

In this edition of our Alumni Spotlight we spoke with Dr. Lakshmi Priya, an officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). She hails from the state of Kerala, India, and is a medical doctor by training.

Aditya K. Anand is a postdoctoral scholar whose work examines how climate change is reshaping multi-hazard risks and livelihood vulnerability in the Bhilangana River Basin

Robert Lunkhopao Haokip is a postdoctoral scholar whose work explores how global events such as the Second World War was experienced at the empire’s margin.

The Mittal Institute hosted a seminar titled “Rethinking Water Crisis, Narrative Designs, and Strategies of Resilience,” marking the end-of-fellowship seminar of Dr. Nobonita Rakshit, India Fellow at the Mittal Institute. The session was chaired by her mentor, Professor Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewel Williams Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

The Mittal Institute is pleased to welcome Fatima Fayyaz, who joins us this spring semester as the Syed Babar Ali Fellow. Fatima is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative Arts at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Her research focuses on Persian mystical and epic literature across Iran and the broader Persianate world, including Central Asia, Afghanistan, and South Asia. During her fellowship at the Mittal Institute, Fatima will undertake a comparative study of āshūrā poetry in Urdu and Persian, tracing its development from the 16th century onward in South Asia and Iran. We spoke with Fatima to learn more about her research and the focus of her fellowship.

The Mittal Institute’s Cambridge and New Delhi offices foster South Asian scholarship by hosting Fellows, Visiting Artist Fellows, and Graduate Student Associates. This spring 2026 we welcome three new researchers and two returning scholars.