CFD Team Spotlight: Pranjal Kumar, Student Fellow

The Newsletter Team sat down for an interview with one of our student researchers, Pranjal Kumar, for an interview about his work, passions, hobbies, and special CFD projects. The transcript of our interview is below.

CFD Team: Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Pranjal Kumar, I am a Kilachand Honors College student here at BU studying political science and philosophy on the pre-law track. I am from Phoenix, Arizona, but my family is from Bihar, India.

CFD Team: What is your role within the Center?

In the center, I am a research fellow working with the Pedagogy team on evaluating the current state of research on the teaching of forced displacement. Currently, we are focusing our efforts on curriculum-building for refugee resettlement employees.

CFD Team: What experiences most directly led you to your role with the Center?

What drew me to the CFD was a multitude of reasons, but primarily my experience working at a refugee resettlement agency back in Phoenix, AZ. Working at the Refugee and Immigrants Community for Empowerment opened my eyes to the faulty and inept resettlement structures our country had in place.

CFD Team: What inspires you about this work?

What inspires me about our work stems mostly from CFD’s interdisciplinary approach and our team. Seeing a biomedical engineer and professor of gender studies join efforts towards a greater humanitarian cause is so inspiring. Solving such difficult and nuanced issues such as the current affairs of the refugee crisis requires people of every background to tackle it in every way. 

CFD Team: Tell us about some of your passions and hobbies outside of academia. What makes you, you?

Outside of academia, I am a novice guitar player, photographer, and trying to get into filmography. 

CFD Team: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Five years from now I hope to be in law school or graduating law school and starting a career as a civil rights lawyer!