This year, Dr. Shobhana Chelliah traveled to India as a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru fellowship. While there, she conducted research on a collection and custodial archiving method to integrate training into language documentation.

A portion of Dr. Chelliah’s research led her to Assam, a state in northeastern India, a location known for language-based conflict issues. While there, UNT Political Science professors Drs. Kimi King and James Meernik, Director of UNT’s Castleberry Peace Institute, joined Dr. Chelliah to lay the groundwork to expand the Castleberry Institute’s research to India.

In July, Assam’s Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT-G) awarded Drs. Chelliah, Meernik and King honorary faculty positions in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. This recognition provides the UNT professors the opportunity to sit on IIT Guwahati Ph.D. committees, facilitate workshops, present lectures, and visit Assam for longer durations. Immediate plans include a virtual conference, which Dr. King is organizing.

Previous research conducted by Drs. Chelliah, Meernik, and King includes the 2020 study, “Linguistics and Political Science: A Strategy for Interdisciplinary and Ethical Research Methodology on Language Endangerment and Political Conflict,” which is published in the journal of Language Documentation & Conservation.