Fung Global Fellows Program

Fung Global Fellows 2022-23

Five exceptional scholars from around the world will come to Princeton University this fall to begin a year of research, writing and collaboration as the tenth cohort of Fung Global Fellows.

The 2022-23 academic year's fellows are:

Dimitri Courant

Postdoctoral research associate

Fung Global Fellow

Dimitri Courant received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Lausanne and the University Paris 8. He is a democracy visiting fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School. He holds a master’s degree in political science from Sciences Po Rennes and a master’s in social sciences from the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences. His recent publications include: “Institutionalizing Deliberative Mini-Publics? Issues of Legitimacy and Power for Randomly Selected Assemblies in Political Systems” and “Citizens' Assemblies for Referendums and Constitutional Reforms: Is There an ‘Irish Model’ for Deliberative Democracy?” During his fellowship year, Courant will focus on citizens’ assemblies on climate change in an international comparative perspective.

Nithya Joseph

Postdoctoral research associate

Fung Global Fellow

Nithya Joseph received her Ph.D. in the socioeconomics of development from the EHESS, Paris. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institut Français Pondicherry, working full-time on a UK GCRF project "Depleted by Debt? Focusing a Gendered Lens on Climate, Credit, and Nutrition in Trans-local Cambodia and South India." As a Fung Global Fellows Program early career research scholar, she will use the material gathered as part of the project to reflect on ways of locating the role of debt in a sustainable and equitable future.

Tania Sharmin

Visiting research scholar

Fung Global Fellow

Tania Sharmin is a senior lecturer in sustainable environmental design in architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University. She completed her Ph.D. at University of Cambridge as a fellow of Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future award. Her doctorate investigated the impact of urban form and microclimate on outdoor thermal comfort and building energy performance for the tropical climate of Dhaka. During her fellowship year, Sharmin will conduct research in the interdisciplinary field of microclimate, comfort and heat health for tackling urban warming and sustaining health in urban spaces of megacities using advanced remote sensing and machine learning techniques

Veda Vaidyanathan

Visiting research scholar

Fung Global Fellow

Veda Vaidyanathan is a multi-disciplinary researcher who specializes in Asia-Africa interactions. As a visiting associate fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies (ICS) in New Delhi and an associate at the Harvard University Asia Center, she brings a comparative perspective to her work, examining Chinese and Indian engagements in Africa. During her Ph.D. at the University of Mumbai, she was a doctoral fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research, and a visiting fellow at Peking University and the Harvard-Yenching Institute (HYI) as part of the ICS-HYI fellowship. Her analysis and op-eds have been published in The Washington Post, The Hindu, South African Journal of International Affairs and findings presented in various global conferences and podcasts. During her fellowship year, Vaidyanathan will focus on how green partnerships can be mobilized between Asia and Africa, examining sub-national actors that craft narratives of sustainability.

Kuansong Victor Zhuang

Visiting research scholar

Fung Global Fellow

Kuansong Victor Zhuang received his Ph.D. from the Department of Disability and Human Development, University of Illinois at Chicago and the Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature at Macquarie University under a Cotutelle arrangement. After graduation, he worked as a research fellow at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is also concurrently principal consultant at SG Enable, the national agency for disabled people. His own book project, based on his Ph.D. research, tentatively titled, "The Biopolitics of Inclusion: Disability and Capacity in the Singapore Nation," examines how inclusion as an ideology is created, circulated, communicated, and consumed in Singapore, and undertakes an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the logics and implications of inclusion as a form of biopower, and the lived realities of disabled people in Singapore. As a Fung Global Fellow, he will research the intersections of disability and technology as it emerges within the smart city.