Dr. Leela Prasad, alumnus of English (MA-1986-88 batch) at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) is among the six Indian-Americans out of a diverse group of 171 scientists, writers, scholars, and artists across 48 fields who have been chosen out of almost 2,500 applicants for the 2023 Guggenheim Fellowships.
Dr. Leela Prasad
Leela Prasad is a Professor of Religious Studies, and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her primary interests are the anthropology of ethics, with a focus on South Asia, gender, narrative, colonialism & decoloniality, prison pedagogy & Gandhi, and religion & modernity.
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation approved the awarding of Guggenheim Fellowships. Created and initially funded in 1925 by Senator Simon and Olga Guggenheim in memory of their son John Simon Guggenheim, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has sought since its inception to “further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.” Fellowships are awarded through an annual competition open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada. Candidates must apply to the Guggenheim Foundation in order to be considered.
Since its establishment, the Foundation has granted nearly $400 million in Fellowships to over 18,000 individuals, among whom are more than 125 Nobel laureates, members of all the national academies, winners of the Pulitzer Prize, Fields Medal, Turing Award, Bancroft Prize, National Book Award, and other internationally recognized honours. The great range of fields of study is a unique characteristic of the Fellowship program.