Gita Surie, Ph.D.: Fulbright Fellow Continues Her Research

by Jordan Chapman

Adelphi professors are always advancing in their respective fields, and Associate Professor Gita Surie, Ph.D., is no different.

In March 2013, Dr. Surie was named a Fulbright Fellow, an honor that allows its recipients to study and conduct research abroad.

The fellowship will fund Dr. Surie’s travel to multiple locations in India during the summers of 2013 and 2014, to examine how green energies are impacting—and used in—rural communities that don’t have access to the essentials, such as power and clean water.

“I want to see what the pathways are to commercializing such technologies in these kinds of populations,” Dr. Surie said. “There are more than 600,000 villages in India, many of them without power or lights. …[I want to see] whether the mode of commercialization differs from the urban setting when large companies [set up utilities].”

She’ll be conducting her studies at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi and later at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. Dr. Surie explained that she could have conducted her research at some of India’s most prestigious business schools, but decided on the two engineering schools because they are working on disseminating some of these technologies—a high priority for Dr. Surie, who wants to be a part of that process.

“The idea is to disseminate all of this knowledge and see how those models can be applied in other developing countries, possibly off-grid applications in the United States. I’m sure there are many applications [where this technology can be used] in remote locations…or places that want to be energy efficient,” she said, noting that these technologies are much needed in India, Africa and other Southeast Asian countries.

Dr. Surie is contributing to the research and sharing her knowledge. She is currently writing a book, tentatively entitled Ecologies of Innovation, which focuses on technology at the national level in the renewable biofuel, solar and wind sectors of renewable energy.

Dr. Surie hopes her work will feed into her classes at Adelphi and into the Garden City community. “I’ve specifically written cases so that I could introduce them into my classes and offer them to students. …I’m always interested in disseminating my knowledge to people who can benefit from it, and the first people who come to mind are my students,” she said.