Class of 2009
College of Arts and Science
Major: Neuroscience
Hometown: Augusta, GA

At the end of his freshman year at Vanderbilt, Nakul founded his university's chapter of Unite for Sight, an organization that empowers communities to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness. In Nashville, Unite for Sight provides free vision screenings, health referrals, and medical education programs to underserved populations. Volunteers also collect used eyeglasses and fundraise to sponsor sight-restoring cataract surgeries for patients in developing countries. As a vice-president of the Vanderbilt chapter of the Global Health Council, Nakul works with other volunteers to raise campus awareness and activism regarding pressing international health disparities. Last year, he participated in Alternative Spring Break in San Francisco, where he served at a soup kitchen and assisted a local clinic with homelessness, HIV/AIDS, and drug rehabilitation services. Nakul also tutors children every week through Vanderbuddies.

During his summer and winter breaks, Nakul spent several weeks in Jaipur, India working for an eye hospital that provides free ophthalmological care to underserved rural populations in the states of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Nakul volunteered as part of a medical team that traveled to remote towns and villages, screened thousands of patients for eye disease, provided free medicine and advice, and conducted hundreds of sight-restoring cataract surgeries. Serving as a Hindi-English translator, he interviewed patients and compiled a database of information regarding patients' backgrounds and experiences during the sight restoration process.

Nakul's academic interests deal with public health and development, particularly in the context of eye care. Before coming to Vanderbilt, he was a finalist in the National Peace Essay Contest, in which he wrote a research paper analyzing methods of sustainable development and democracy promotion in Haiti and East Timor. As a contributing writer to the Encyclopedia of Global Health, he has researched and written published entries about the status of global eye health. Nakul also conducts retinopathy of prematurity research at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center.