Recent graduates head to New Zealand and India as Fulbright scholars

As Fulbright scholars, Sahana Arumani (H’25, G’26) is tracking bacteria in New Zealand’s rural waterways and Shagun Gandhi (H’25) is focusing on head and neck cancer survivorship in India. Photos: Courtesy of Sahana Arumani and Shagun Gandhi

Earlier this year, Georgetown was named No. 1 producer of Fulbright scholars, including two awardees from the School of Health.

Sahana Arumani (H’25, G’26) won the grant and headed to Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, to assist with mapping leptospira strains in waterways after major flooding events by collecting field samples.

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease, transferred from animals to humans, with flu-like symptoms that disproportionately affects agricultural workers and Indigenous communities in New Zealand. Part of Arumani’s project includes contributing to public health literature reviews and qualitative research on disease awareness campaigns.

Arumani began her undergraduate career doing wet-lab research before transitioning to public health-focused projects, including an honors thesis on HPV vaccine uptake. After starting her accelerated master’s program, Arumani became interested in the concept of “One Health,” the idea that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked.

Arumani is interested in synthesizing the limited but concerning data on pregnancy complications associated with leptospirosis and understanding how occupational exposure compounds the risk.

“That gap in the literature stood out to me,” says Arumani. “It’s a place where epidemiology, occupational health, and women’s health intersect.”

“In the human science major, you’re expected to ask your own questions and figure out how to answer them. That’s exactly what the Fulbright also requires.”

—Shagun Gandhi (H’25)

Shagun Gandhi (H’25) headed to Tata Memorial Centre’s ACTREC (Advanced Centre for Treatment, Research and Education in Cancer) in Mumbai, India, with her Fulbright grant. Her project focuses on head and neck cancer survivorship.

Gandhi’s time at Georgetown’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she hosted art workshops for patients, taught her that “curing” is only one part of the journey.

Gandhi is interviewing head and neck cancer survivors who are one to three years post treatment in order to refine a survivorship questionnaire that accounts for local nuances, such as the role of faith, village priests, and traditional Ayurvedic medicine in a patient’s care journey.

As a first-year student at Georgetown, Gandhi conducted independent molecular biology research through the Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Scholarship Programme, which supports scholars at 21 universities around the world, including Georgetown. She worked with professor Jan LaRocque to research the molecular mechanisms of DNA double-strand break repair, a pathway that is critical to maintaining genomic stability and preventing cancer.

“My wet-lab experience taught me ownership,” says Gandhi. “In the human science major, you’re expected to ask your own questions and figure out how to answer them. That’s exactly what the Fulbright also requires.”