Kennesaw State Undergrads Headed to India for Research Internships Thanks to Birla Carbon Grant 

In recent years India has overtaken China to become the stop sending nation for foreign students entering the U.S. 

But the U.S.-India “trade deficit,” as it were, has been lopsided in the student arena, with relatively few Americans spending much time in the world’s most populous nation. 

Birla Carbon, an Indian-owned provider of carbon black with a history in Georgia, is partnering with Kennesaw State University to make progress toward righting the scale. 

Funded by a $184,000 gift from the company, 12 student interns from the KSU College of Science and Mathematics will undertake research projects at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Goa. The projects will begin at Kennesaw State in the spring and continue them in India in the summer. 

The accommodations could be worse: Goa, a Portuguese colony for more than four centuries until 1961, is a coastal tourism hotspot known for its beaches and warm hospitality.

Birla Carbon, meanwhile, answers to the Aditya Birla Group, a Mumbai-based industrial conglomerate that established a stronghold in Georgia through key acquisitions. Birla Carbon emerged from the acquisition of Columbian Chemical. Another Birla-owned company, aluminum giant Novelis Inc., is based in Buckhead and operates a separate research center in Kennesaw.

Birla Carbon has a 15-year track record of supporting researchers within Kennesaw State, funding 117 Birla Carbon scholars at Georgia’s third largest university over that period. Twenty-one have ended up joining the company in Marietta.

“Over the years, we’ve seen phenomenal growth and development opportunities for the students here in the College of Science and Mathematics,” said Birla Carbon HR head Terence Norman.

Of the 11,023 students in Georgia who participated in study-abroad programs during the 2024-25 school year, more than half were bound for just five Western European countries. 

• Learn more about the program here.