Washington, Mar 5 (IANS): India's Shubhalaxmi Vaylure has been selected by US State Department as International Exchange Alumni Member for March for her dedication to building greater environmental awareness in India.

Dr Shubhalaxmi's will be recognized on the International Exchange Alumni website, the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs' official website for the more than one million Department-sponsored exchange alumni worldwide.

Shubhalaxmi first came to the US in 2003 as part of the Fulbright Indo-American Environmental Leadership Programme which took her to the University of Montana to study educational nature centres, the State Department announcement said.

Upon returning from this programme, she drew inspiration from her Fulbright Programme as she implemented innovative educational Programmes at the Mumbai Conservation Education Centre.

Shubhalaxmi went on to study non-profit management at Boston University through the Hubert H. Humphrey Programme. This experience enabled her to bring her environmental advocacy to a new level.

Returning from the Humphrey Programme, she developed online courses in natural history and worked in the organization development sector of the Bombay Natural History Society where she conducted staff training workshops and boosted fundraising and marketing efforts to benefit the Centre.

In 2012, Dr. Shubhalaxmi and a team of her alumni peers won support from the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund to provide management trainings for professionals from Indian environmental NGOs. The team has already trained nearly 150 individuals.

Shubhalaxmi Vaylure loves nature, according to her official biography. On her Facebook page, her "dream house" overlooks a lush, marshy, nature scene. "It was in my childhood that I got the nature bug," she said. "I spent my growing years surrounded by trees and bees. Science was my favourite subject."