NIT Rourkela student received a highly competitive Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship
Rourkela: Mr. Manoj Hariharan, a doctoral student in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Bhishma Tyagi, has received a highly competitive and prestigious Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowship for Doctoral Research for the year 2022-2023. Recipients of this award receive a fully funded fellowship to work with any host institution situated in the United States of America.
Being the first student of NIT Rourkela to receive the Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship, Mr. Hariharan also became the first fellow of NITR to undertake Research in Climatology at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research – NCAR Earth System Laboratory. Expressing gratitude towards his alma mater and mentor, Mr. Hariharan said, “The Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences has extended much-needed support during this journey. I would like to say thanks to my mentor Prof. Bhishma Tyagi and all other faculty members of the department for providing the right guidance at right time. This is indeed an overwhelming achievement for me.” Hariharan is one among the 4 who has received this prestigious fellowship from India this year (2022-23). He will be spending 9 months at National Centre for Atmospheric Research – NCAR Earth System Laboratory, Colorado, USA. NCAR is the most advanced and well-equipped research institution for all atmospheric scientists across the globe. It is prestigious to get a chance to work with the renowned scientists of NCAR.
Congratulating Hariharan, Prof. Bhishma Tyagi (Assistant Professor, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, NIT Rourkela) said, “I am pleased about the achievement of Mr. Manoj. His constant efforts to learn things and keep perfection in the smallest of his works make him an ideal researcher. His planned objective at NCAR involves working on atmosphere-biosphere interactions over the Indian region. The collaboration of NIT Rourkela with NCAR through Mr. Manoj’s Fulbright visit will undoubtedly bring more visibility and opportunities for our department’s ongoing research works in the future.”
US-India Educational Foundation (USIEF) administers the Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowships. The objective is to promote a wider exchange of knowledge and professional talents by engaging scientific and technical research scholars from both countries related to climate research and education. Fulbright-Kalam Climate Fellowships for Doctoral Research is for those Indian scholars who are perusing a Ph.D. at an Indian institution.
Recently adding a few more achievements to the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, NITR, three former Ph.D. students Dr. Kasturi Singh, Dr. Sudhansu Sekhar Rath & Dr. Bijay Kumar Guha (all under the supervision of Prof. Jagabandhu Panda) received post-doctoral fellowships to conduct research at Grantham Institute UK, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign USA and UAE University respectively. Dr. Kasturi Singh is the first-ever scholar from the department to receive the Imperial Climate and Energy Early Academic Fellowship as part of the British Council Women in STEM programme. Dr. Nand Kishore Reddy Busireddy (under the supervision of Prof. K. K. Osuri) got post-doc positions in the Typhoon Warning Centre. Dr. Dibyashakti Panda (under the supervision of Prof. B. Kundu) got a prestigious post-doctoral ‘Humboldt Fellowship’. Mr. Konda Gopinadh, who has submitted his Ph.D. thesis (under the supervision of Prof. N. K. Vissa) is also selected for a scientific position at Graz University of Technology Austria.
Head of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department, Prof. Jagabandhu Panda congratulated all scholars and further briefing on the department said, “The Department is set up to provide state-of-the-art education and research in Earth, ocean, climate and planetary sciences. The department will continue providing the best of education in the field of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences with an eye on strong fundamentals, research aptitude, devotion to the profession and high ethical standards, so that more of our students get this kind of opportunity and global recognition.”