Thirteen Academic Advisory Council

Prof Frederick L Coolidge Professor Co-Director of Undergraduate Education, Psychology Department, University of Colorado, USA

Prof Frederick Coolidge received his BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Florida (UF) and completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at UF. He is Professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS). Currently, he is also Co-Director of Undergraduate Education in Psychology, and Co-Director of the Center for Cognitive Archaeology. He has received several teaching awards, including the lifetime designation as University of Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar. He also received the UCCS LAS Annual Outstanding Research and Creative Works Award (2004), and the UCCS Annual Faculty Award for Excellence in Research (2006). Prof Coolidge is a three-time Fulbright Fellowship Award recipient (1987 NIMHANS, 1992 Manipal, 2005 India-wide). For the past nine years, he has been a Visiting Professor/Guest Professor at IIT Gandhinagar, teaching courses on research methods, brain evolution, and sleep and dreams. Prof Coolidge is a member of the Association of Psychological Science, the European Society for Human Evolution, the Society for American Archaeology, and International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. He teaches introductory and advanced undergraduate statistics, cognitive evolution, evolutionary neuropsychology, abnormal psychology, and sleep and dreams.

Prof Ashish Garg Professor and Head, Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering and Kotak School of Sustainability Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Prof Ashish Garg is an engineer by training and is currently Professor and the Head of Sustainable Energy Engineering (Founding) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He has founded several sustainability-related entities and actions at IIT Kanpur since 2020, including the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering, Kesavan Center for Energy Policy and Climate Solutions, and Kotak School of Sustainability, securing external funding of over 125 Cr. Prof Garg research is on different aspects of clean energy and sustainability, with current interests in solar photovoltaics, energy harvesting, hydrogen, recycling, decarbonization, NetZero, and energy policy matters, with over 200 research publications. For his research, he has worked with several universities and companies, nationally and internationally, with executed projects of 20+ Crores as PI and co-PI. Prof Garg research has given rise to 30+ Masters and 15+ PhD theses. He is also a passionate teacher with a few courses on MOOC platform which are globally accessible. He has conducted several national-level exercises to develop a well-rounded materials engineering curriculum that has resulted in a few initiatives in IITs/NITs and IISc. He is a regular speaker and panellist on several forums related to sustainability. He passionately advocates sustainable living and sustainable practices for a better world and for adopting a collaborative approach for the same. In his free time, he loves to trek in Himalayas.

Prof Nuno Guimarães Professor Department of Information Science and Technology (ISTA), University Institute of Lisbon, (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal

Prof Nuno Guimarães graduated in 1983 in Electrotechnical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST/UTL), MSc. In EEC IST/UTL (1987) and got his PhD in Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering (1992) from IST, Lisbon, Portugal. He was Professor at IST/UTL (1992/1997) and Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (1997/2012), invited Professor at the TUB (Berlin Institute of Technology) Germany (2010), and consultant/researcher at AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, USA (1989-1991). He was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (2003-2009), Pro & Vice Rector of ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon (2012-2018). He was a member of the board and founder of several startup IT companies (1999 to 2006). Prof Guimarães is Senior Member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) since 2012, Chair of the Portuguese Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) since 2021, and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Cyberspace and Law Research Center of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon since 2022. His academic and scientific interests include Human Computer Interaction and User Experience, Digital Society Challenges, Technology and Law. He is a visiting scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar since 2014.

Prof Supreet Saini Professor, Chemical Engineering & Fellow, Wellcome Trust/DBT (India Alliance) Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Prof Supreet Saini obtained his BTech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2005 and PhD in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2010. Prof Saini is a Professor & a DBT/Wellcome Trust (India Alliance) Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay. Prior to joining IIT Bombay, he was an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at IIT Gandhinagar (2010-2012), where he also headed the Faculty Recruitment Committee among other responsibilities. He is the recipient of the Young Engineer Award 2017 (Indian National Academy of Engineering) and the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award 2011 (Department of Biotechnology). His research interests include understanding how chance, determinism, and history shape evolutionary trajectories of populations and communities.

Prof Nitish V Thakor Professor of Biomedical Engineering Johns Hopkins University, USA

Prof Nitish Thakor received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay and earned both M.S. in and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also has an appointment in the Johns Hopkins Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prof Thakor directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and is also the director of the NIH Training Grant on Neuroengineering. He also served as the founding Director of Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE) from 2008-2022. Prof Thakor teaches Medical Instrumentation and Rehabilitation Engineering, and his research focuses on neuroengineering (technologies for brain monitoring, brain machine interface, neurally controlled upper limb prosthesis). He is an author/co-author of more than 450 refereed publications and a Major Reference Work Handbook of Neuroengineering. He is actively engaged in international scientific programs, collaborative exchanges with various Universities. Prof Thakor is a recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, IEEE, Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Fellow of International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering and is an elected member of the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Thakor is a Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Alumnus of IIT Bombay.

Prof Satish K Tripathi President State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

An internationally distinguished researcher and higher education leader, Prof Tripathi, PhD, is the University at Buffalo’s 15th president. Prof Tripathi, who served as UB’s provost from 2004-2011, was dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, from 1997-2004. Previously, he spent 19 years as professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, including seven years as department Chair. In 2024, Prof Tripathi was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A fellow of IEEE and AAAS, he has published more than 200 scholarly papers and supervised more than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students. He served on editorial boards of many international scholarly journals and program committees of numerous international conferences. Prof Tripathi graduated at the top of his class from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Toronto, as well as master’s degrees in statistics from the University of Alberta and BHU. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from BHU and honorary doctorates from Maharaja Surajmal Brij University, the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, and Brock University in Canada. Prof Tripathi is co-chair of the Association of American Universities (AAU) Task Force on Expanding U.S.-India University Partnerships, and he serves on the College Football Playoff Board of Managers. Previously, he was chair of the Mid-American Conference Council of Presidents and Internet 2. He also served on the boards of the AAU, the NCAA Division I, the NCAA Board of Governors, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.