Kerala girl gets Rs 1-cr scholarship for Alzheimer's research in the US

Meenakshi wants to return to India after her PhD and post-doctoral research programs to work in the space of cognitive ageing because there is a 'big gap' in research here.

Forget student loans. Twenty-six-year-old Meenakshi Menon has received a full tuition waiver and a dream scholarship worth over Rs 1 crore to study healthy cognitive ageing in the US.

Inspired by her mother’s experiences caring for her grandmother, who is thought to have had Alzheimer’s disease, she’s determined to unlock the secrets of a sharper mind, potentially impacting millions.

Although Meenakshi was initially inclined towards engineering, she became attuned to the challenges of ageing observing her grandparents’ experiences firsthand, which sparked her passion for psychology.

Reflecting on her motivation, Meenakshi told DH: “My mother’s accounts of caring for her grandmother (my great-grandmother) were pivotal.”

“Her stories were a drive for me to study Alzheimer’s even though she wasn’t formally diagnosed,” she said.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, her master’s thesis at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, examined how elderly couples coped during lockdowns.

For the past year, she conducted research at the Centre for Brain Research (CBR), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, focusing on Alzheimer’s risks and protective factors in urban settings under the Tata Longitudinal Study of Aging (TLSA).

From August 3, Meenakshi will pursue her PhD at Georgia State University, Atlanta, USA, studying memory and cognitive functions, guided by Dr Sarah Barber.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will fund her studies, providing an annual scholarship of $26,000 along with a Department Scholar Award of $10,000 for the first two years, totalling approximately Rs 1,00,92,000.

In 10 days, she will represent India alongside a Nimhans researcher at the World Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia, USA.

Meenakshi, originally from Kozhikode in Kerela and living in JP Nagar, aims to return to India after completing her PhD and post-doctoral research to address the significant research gap in cognitive ageing.

Meenakshi’s father Prakash Menon works in the pharma sector, while mother Sreeja VK is a homemaker, and her brother, Madhav, practises as a dentist.