Shailendra Kumar Mandal, Assistant Professor in Department of Architecture at National Institute of Technology Patna, has bagged the prestigious Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship sponsored by the United States – India Education Foundation (USIEF).
India has reportedly seen a three-fold increase in the number of Fulbright fellowships offered to applicants from India ever since the Union government started funding USIEF.
Getting through a two-tier selection process, Mr. Mandal made it to the final list of 25 fellows, selected for doctoral and professional research fellowships for this year. The Fellowship will help him to carry out part of his doctoral research in the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA, for nine months starting September 2013, a press release issued by him said.
Mr. Mandal, whose research is on ‘Climate Change Impacts on Water Availability: Measures for Sustainable Development for the city of Patna,’ intends to generate the awareness and make all possible effort to get the impact of climate change included as a parameter in the decision making process of the urban planning in the country.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange programme sponsored by the US government. Established in 1946 under a legislation introduced by late Senator J. William Fulbright, it currently operates in over 155 countries worldwide.