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Phurwa D Gurung, PhD Candidate in Geography, received the competitive Social Science Research Council's InternationalÌýDissertation 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.ÌýThe SSRC IDRF fellowship will fund a year-long ethnographic fieldworkÌýin Dolpo, Northwest Nepal,Ìýfor his dissertation research tentatively titledÌýReordering Highland Territories: State-building, indigeneity, and multispecies worldmaking.ÌýHis dissertation takes caterpillarÌýfungus as a lens to examine the ways in which state-ledÌýbiodiversity conservation and resource extraction overlap and clash with Indigenous environmental governance in the Himalayas.Ìý

Phurwa also recently published an article titled "" in the journalÌýEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space.ÌýHe has alsoÌýco-authored a book chapter with Ken Bauer titled "" for theÌý. The same book also has a chapter contributed by Dr. Tim Oakes of the Geography Department.