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Newsmakers of the Week MARCH 28, 2025 | The Indian Eye 29

and will help the College develop its from the effects of Batteries, Sri Nihal Tammana has been instrumental in
public health program. recycling as many as 625,000+ batteries, preventing hazardous waste from
At Colby, he will teach a variety of polluting landfills. He has helped educate 40 million people through school
courses, including an introductory lev- programs, corporate workshops, and media outreach.
el course on public health, an advanced Recognizing his efforts and dedication to render Mother Earth from the
course on epidemics and outbreaks, adverse impacts of batteries, Sri Nihal has been featured in a German edu-
and a one-month “Jan Plan” course cational textbook by Westermann Verlag, which includes a lesson about my
on crisis communications. Shah, who work and questions for students. This ensures that students across Germany
holds medical and law degrees, also learn about battery recycling as part of their curriculum, further amplifying
will teach a course on the fundamen- the impact.
tals of the American legal system.
In addition to his teaching re- VATSAN RAMAN
sponsibilities, Shah will help Colby
formalize its academic program in Academic honored as Vilas
public health, a central component of
the College’s initiative to become a national leader in the sciences among liberal Associate in Biochemistry
arts colleges and regional hub for scientific innovation.
Shah said he was “over the moon” about becoming a member of the Col-
by faculty. “This is a fantastic opportunity to train the next generation of pub-
lic health leaders,” he said. “Colby is well positioned to be a national leader in
undergraduate public health education, and I’m honored to help play a role.”
Shah, who received an honorary doctoral degree from Colby in 2022, re-
cently stepped down from a leadership position at the U.S. Centers for Dis-
ease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
“As Mainers witnessed throughout the pandemic, Dr. Shah is a natural
teacher. He has an extraordinary capacity to synthesize and communicate
complex issues. And that he does so with humor, compassion, and a clear
commitment to bettering the lives of others is all the more remarkable,” said
Colby President David A. Greene.
Before accepting the position at Colby, Shah served as both principal
deputy director and acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, as well as acting administrator of the Agency for Toxic Sub-
stances and Disease Registry. He was with the federal CDC for two years,
following his departure from Maine.

SRI NIHAL TAMMANA he University of Wisconsin – Madison’s Biochemistry professor Vatsan
Raman has been selected as a 2025-2026 Vilas Associate, awarded by the
15-Year-Old Appears in Textbook TOffice of the Vice Chancellor for Research. The Vilas Associates Competi-
tion recognizes “new and ongoing research of the highest quality and significance.”
for Battery Recycling standing and designing different biological systems: biomolecules, regulatory
His laboratory takes a systems and synthetic biology approach to under-
pathways, and organisms. Helping to understand and design allosteric pro-
ead the article again. What teins, synthetic bacteriophages with new host range and regulation, and de-
are the problems with batter- veloping high-throughput functional assays to predict the effect of variants in
Ries? What did Sri Nihal and disease-relevant genes.
his friends do to help solve these “I am honored to receive the Vilas Associate award and I thank the Vilas
problems? What did you find about Foundation for this generous support and recognition,” says Raman. “This
Sri Nihal and his project from the ar- award is truly meaningful, as it enables us to ask bigger, bolder questions and
ticle? Sri Nihal had a vision. Look at push the boundaries of science and technology.”
the four levels of action on page 85. Raman, who joined the department in 2015, uses systems and synthet-
Which level has Sri Nihal reached ic biology to understand and engineer biomolecular and cellular systems at
with his organization? Talk about it protein-wide and genome-wide scales. His research lies at the intersection of
in class.” biochemistry, computation, and engineering.
The above is part of a German Raman’s areas of expertise include Biomolecular Folding & Interactions;
educational textbook by Wester- Chemical Biology & Enzymology; Quantitative Biology; Structural Biology;
mann Verlag, which includes a lesson Systems & Synthetic Biology.
and questions for students to learn, Award recipients are chosen competitively by divisional research commit-
reflect, discuss, and answer in Class and Tests about a 15-year-old youth of tees, based on a detailed proposal. Winners receive research salary support
Indian origin, living in New Jersey. during the summers of 2025 and 2026, in addition to $25,000 flexible research
It all started when Sri Nihal Tammana was just 10 years old. He saw on funds over the two years. The award is funded by the William F. Vilas Estate Trust.
the TV about a lithium-ion battery explosion at a waste disposal plant in Raman earned his B.S. from Baroda University, India; M.S. from Missou-
California. Sri Nihal discovered the environmental dangers of battery waste ri University of Science and Technology; Ph.D. from University of Washing-
- improper disposal leads to toxic pollution, fires, and health hazards. “Deter- ton, Seattle; and Postdoctoral research from Harvard Medical School - Wyss
mined to make a difference, I founded Recycle My Battery (RMB), a non- Institute for Biologically inspired Engineering.
profit dedicated to educating communities and making battery recycling easy
and accessible. Over the past five years, my initiative has grown into a global To read more about Indian diaspora and Global Indians, log on to and follow
movement,” Sri Nihal says proudly. our website www.TheIndianEYE.com
In the past five years, since he launched the movement to save the Earth

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