Cynthia Packert (History of Art and Architecture) has been awarded a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation as well as a semester-long Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar Award in support of her academic leave in 2016-2017. The Guggenheim project, titled ‘Brand BAPS’: Swaminarayan Hinduism, Visual Culture, and Sectarian Identity, represents the culmination of 5 years of prior research in the US and India on this transnational Gujarati sect of devotional Hinduism, focusing in particular on its elaborate neo-traditional temples and other multi-media visual productions. The related Fulbright project, titled From Gujarat to the Globe: The Art, Architecture and Visual Culture of Swaminarayan Hinduism, involves four months of research in India and includes travel to unpublished and little-known historical sites that are important to the development of Swaminarayan art and architecture in Gujarat and beyond.