Phurwa D Gurung, PhD Candidate in Geography, received the competitive Social Science Research Council's International听Dissertation Research Fellowship (SSRC IDRF) funded by the Mellon Foundation. Phurwa was selected from a total of 870 applicants from graduate students at 112 universities. This year's 60 awardees represent thirty-one universities and fourteen disciplines.听The SSRC IDRF fellowship will fund a year-long ethnographic fieldwork听in Dolpo, Northwest Nepal,听for his dissertation research tentatively titled听Reordering Highland Territories: State-building, indigeneity, and multispecies worldmaking.听His dissertation takes caterpillar听fungus as a lens to examine the ways in which state-led听biodiversity conservation and resource extraction overlap and clash with Indigenous environmental governance in the Himalayas.听
Phurwa also recently published an article titled "" in the journal听Environment and Planning E Nature and Space.听He has also听co-authored a book chapter with Ken Bauer titled "" for the听. The same book also has a chapter contributed by Dr. Tim Oakes of the Geography Department.