Dr. Anjali Joshi (BT/EE/1981) instituted the WISE New Faculty Fellowship for a newly joined female faculty member from any discipline at IIT Kanpur. Dr. Joshi is a prominent technology leader who currently serves on the boards of Persistent Systems, Xero, and LocoNav and advises institutions such as Insight Partners, the National AI Institute for Exceptional Education, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, and INSEAD. She has held senior leadership roles at AT&T Bell Labs and Covad Communications and served as Vice President of Product Management at Google, where she led key initiatives, including the Google Fiber project, which brought ultra-high-speed broadband to communities across the U.S. At AT&T Bell Labs, she served as a Principal Member of Technical Staff, contributing to voice and high-speed data communication systems, including the planning and implementation of ATM/IP networks for AT&T's high-speed services. Dr. Joshi earned her B.Tech. in Electrical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, a Master's degree in Computer Engineering from the State University of New York, and a Master's degree in Engineering Management from Stanford University.

Prof. Namrata Singh

(Sep. 2025-Sep. 2028)

Dr. Namrata Singh, Department of Chemistry, IIT Kanpur, works at the interface of chemical biology, bioinorganic chemistry, and nanomaterials, with a focus on biomedical applications. She is a recipient of the IUPAC-Solvay International Award for Young Chemists, the Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship, the ETH Zurich Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Metrohm Young Chemist Award, among other recognitions. She holds a B.Sc. and M.Sc. from BHU and a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru.

Prof. Pragathi Priyadharsini

(March 2022 - Feb. 2025)

Prof. Pragathi Priyadharsini Balasubramani is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cognitive Science in the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. She directs the Translational Neuroscience and Technology lab. She works on cognitive brain-machine interface paradigms offered at a community setting, with a focus to derive efficient real-time neuro-cognitive states representing the underlying physiology and to develop non-invasive intervention techniques for neurological disorders. She also explores integrating body signals such as gastric signals and cardiac signals for characterizing neurocognition and investigates its plasticity to transcranial current/magnetic stimulation. Earlier to this, she was a Project Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego.She has her PhD for computationally reconciling the functional roles of dopamine and serotonin neuromodulators in the cortico-basal ganglia circuit for decision-making from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. She has also received the prestigious young investigator award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD) and an award for innovative research from the Kavli Institute of Brain and Mind.