Student Exchange

Reflection Blogs | 2025-2027

The Global Past Research Initiative (GPRI) Student Exchange program invites Humanities PhD students at the University of Toronto and graduate students associated with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, the American University in Cairo, and other universities in Cairo and India, to participate in an exchange program at one of the GPRI’s partner institutions. The three- to six-week-long fellowships allow participants to work closely with specific research materials or faculty members to support graduate research. Below are blogs from past Student Exchange fellows reflecting on their experiences.

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  Student Experience

  Tracing Representations of Ancient Egyptian Royal Women

  ByRosemary Ott

  I participated in the GPRI Graduate Exchange Program at the American University in Cairo during the fall of 2025 with the objective of conducting research and collecting iconographic data for my dissertation on symbols of power in the iconographic programs of ancient Egyptian queens. During my 6-week stay, I had originally anticipated taking advantage of the library resources—especially the Rare Books and Special Collections Library—and perhaps form connections with faculty members. However, I was pleasantly surprised to have the opportunity to sit in on several classes and to participate in class trips to museums and guided tours to archaeological sites such as Saqqara.

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  Student Experience

  Understanding Mumbai’s Sacred Sites as Palimpsests

  ByPoulami Das

  As part of the Global Past Student exchange program, I attended IIT Bombay. I had the opportunity to closely work with Professor Smriti Haricharan, whose research interests overlap with mine on the themes of material culture and placemaking. During the first phase of my visit (August 2025), we discussed scholarly works on material culture, particularly from an archaeological perspective. These conversations were intellectually stimulating as they helped me think of material culture beyond the study of objects, but as a process of memory, temporality, absence, and archaeological perspective.

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  Student Experience

  Microliths and Microscopes in the Maple Country

  ByMutharasu Anbalagan

  I arrived in Toronto in October 2025 as an International Visiting Graduate Student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. I was fortunate to work under the supervision of Professor Liye Xie. It was my first visit to Canada, and I had no idea that the next few months would become one of the most memorable experiences of my academic journey.