Vani Dewan

Mumbai-based Vani Dewan is a Fulbright-Nehru Student Researcher, studying the neurological connections between earlylife stress and its effect on mental and physical health across a lifetime. When not in the lab, she spends her time DJing in Mumbai clubs, teaching choir to students at the Muktangan school, which involves lessons in breathing, posture, enunciation, tone, emotion, storytelling and more.

Dewan graduated from Scripps College in California in 2021, with a degree in neuroscience. She is hosted by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, where she works at neuroscientist Vidita Vaidya’s Neurobiology of Emotion lab.

The lab is involved in rodent research to find how early-life stress can create physiological changes in rodents, and the potential effects of pharmaceutical and psychedelic therapies in such cases. “Understanding this connection between psychological and physiological phenomena has blown my mind,” she says. Rodent research is beginning-of- the-pipeline work, findings of which get extrapolated on humans following years of subsequent research, explains Dewan.

Dewan is grateful for the experience and independence the Fulbright-Nehru program has brought to her. “Being financially independent in the first year after graduation is a very big deal for me,” she says. “I’ve been able to completely self-sustain this entire year.”

She says the Fulbright-Nehru program has put her in the space of mental health and neuroscience research that she wouldn’t have been able to access on her own. On the personal front, she got a chance to dabble in DJing. “DJing here has been a joy. All my favorite musical genres are well represented here in Mumbai,” she says.

Though her tenure in India has been of just nine months, Dewan takes back with her invaluable experience and memories. Most importantly, as an Indian American, Dewan says the time in Mumbai has added more depth to her identity. “I realized how American I am after spending time in India,” she smiles, but adds, “I will return to the United States more Indian than I ever was before.”

Top: Vani Dewan’s research involves finding neurological connections between early-life stress and its effect on mental and physical health across a lifetime.

Left: When not in the lab, Dewan spends her time teaching choir to students at a school in Mumbai.