Scholarship provides financial support to Nepalese students at OHIO

Bishal Bhattarai is a computational physicist and doctoral student in the Physics and Astronomy program. Photo courtesy of Bishal Bhattarai.

Deserving students at Ohio University benefit from a broad range of scholarships, from university-wide to major-specific, which lessen their financial burden and allow them to focus more fully on their studies.

The annually awarded Vishwa S. Shukla Memorial Scholarship provides this kind of targeted support to a Nepalese student enrolled or accepted into OHIO’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Named after the late OHIO professor of economics, the Shukla Memorial Scholarship enables and rewards Nepalese students’ success at Ohio University. This year’s recipient, doctoral student Bishal Bhattarai, MS ’16, is no exception.

“Bishal has been an outstanding student: original, creative and diligent,” said Bhattarai’s adviser and mentor, Distinguished Professor of Physics David Drabold. “He has also been an excellent mentor for new students [in the program].”

Bhattarai, who is originally from Nepal, moved to the United States in August 2013 to attend OHIO. As a computational physicist in OHIO’s Physics and Astronomy program, Bhattarai has made great advances in his research, in part due to the Shukla Memorial Scholarship.

“Since I am a computational physicist, a computer is one of the most important things that I use,” Bhattarai said. “I bought a … computer with the money, and I’m really thankful.”

Bhattarai chose Ohio University out of a plethora of schools. He took several universities’ physics program rankings, professors, coursework and scholarship opportunities into consideration, and OHIO beat out its competitors.

Drabold explained that Bhattarai’s notable discoveries include “a low density form of amorphous carbon, which is actually a three-dimensional form of amorphous graphene.” According to Drabold, graphene is one of the most talked about topics in science today.

Before Shukla’s 30-year stretch as a professor at OHIO, he held various roles as a senior official in the Nepalese government. During the government’s first democratically elected administration, Shukla was the country’s secretary of industry and commerce.

He earned advanced degrees from universities across the globe, including Benaras Hindu University in India and the University of Manchester in Great Britain. Remaining dedicated to his own roots, Shukla made a point to mentor Nepalese students throughout their time in the United States, helping ensure their success.

Thanks to Ohio University’s community of dedicated faculty and generous donors, Shukla’s legacy of supporting exceptional students, such as Bhattarai, continues today.