Eleventh Academic Advisory Council

Mr Michael A. Alvarez Board Member, QB3 Program Director University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Mr Michael Alvarez holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Boston College, and certificates in Intellectual Property Management from the University of Washington and Executive Education through the UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Mr Alvarez has been building strategic partnerships between industry, government, academia, and non-profits for more than twenty-five years. Early in his career he was a management consultant with Accenture in NYC, focused on energy and biopharma clients. He later directed centers for industry partnering, workforce development, and entrepreneurship at several premier institutions including Stanford University, Columbia University, UC San Francisco, and MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is widely sought for expert opinion and guidance on translating technologies and talents from university to industry settings, human and planetary health, incubators and accelerators for startups, and the future of work in emerging and evolving sectors. He is an established author and has addressed these topics in key venues such as Nature, Forbes, US News and World Report, and the National Public Radio. He continues to advance life science and sustainability solutions through his role as program director for QB3 at UCSC, leading innovation and entrepreneurship programs and providing guidance and support to early-stage companies. He formerly served as chair and as a board member for many years for the Northern California SF based Bay Bio Institute, focused on its three-part mission of Entrepreneurship, Workforce Development, and Science Education.

Prof Rajendra Kumar Bordia George J. Bishop, III Chair Professor of Ceramics and Materials Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering Clemson University, USA

Prof Rajendra Kumar Bordia is the George J. Bishop, III Endowed Chair Professor of Ceramics and Materials Engineering. He has served as the Chair of the Materials Science and Engineering Department at Clemson University (2013-2019). Before joining Clemson in 2013, he was a faculty member in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington (UW). From 1998 to 2005, he was the Chairman of his Department at UW. He started his career as a Research Scientist in the Central Research and Development of DuPont Co. from 1986 to 1991. He has also had Visiting/Guest Professor appointments at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India; Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India; Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, India and Friedrich-Alexander Universität, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. Prof Bordia received his undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Cornell University in Materials Science and Engineering. Prof Bordia’s research is at the intersection of materials and mechanics and is focused on fundamental and applied studies in the processing and properties of complex material systems for energy, environmental, and medical applications. Current emphasis is on ceramics, composites, multilayered, and porous materials. He has authored or co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed technical publications and has presented over 300 invited lectures and seminars. In his academic career, he has been a PI or Co-PI on over USD 70 Million of extramural research funding. He is currently serving as the President of the American Ceramic Society.

Prof Ashish Garg Professor, Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Prof Ashish Garg obtained his BE and ME degrees in Metallurgical Engineering from VNIT Nagpur and IISc Bangalore in 1995 and 1998 respectively and PhD degree in Materials Science from the University of Cambridge, UK in 2002. Prof Garg is a Professor and the founding Head of the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering and also founding Professor-in-Charge of the Kotak School of Sustainability at IIT Kanpur. Prior to the formation of this department in 2020, he was a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. While on deputation from IIT Kanpur, he was also the Dean of Faculty Affairs at IIT Jodhpur in 2017, where he also laid the foundation of the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering. He has also been involved in setting Materials Engineering curriculum of IITs at Gandhinagar, Jammu, and Goa. He has also had brief stints at RMIT University and CSIRO, both in Melbourne (Australia) and in Tata Steel, Mumbai and Infineon Technologies, Germany. His research interests are in materials and device development for energy harvesting and storage e.g. photovoltaic, ferroic and multiferroic, triboelectric and battery materials, their device integration and scale-up, as well as in carbon neutrality and Net Zero. He has graduated over 40 Masters and PhD students and has coauthored ~200 publications. He also has a keen interest in materials and sustainability educational matters, and has led the initiatives to reform the curriculum of Materials Science and Metallurgy education in IITs and NITs. He was a Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge University before joining IIT Kanpur in 2003.

Dr Yogesh Goyal Assistant Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine and McCormick School of Engineering Northwestern University, USA

Dr Yogesh Goyal received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from the IIT Gandhinagar and PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University. Dr Goyal is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. His lab is housed within the Center for Synthetic Biology. With a unique background in engineering, developmental biology, biophysical modeling, and single-cell biology, the Goyal Lab develops quantitative approaches to problems in developmental biology and cancer drug resistance. Yogesh's work has been awarded highly prestigious awards from various private foundations including from Burroughs Wellcome Fund, Jane Coffin Childs, Cancer Research Foundation, STAT Wunderkinds, and Schmidt Science Fellows.

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). He 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 Robert Lund Professor and Chair Department of Statistics University of California, Santa Cruz, USA

Prof Robert Lund received his undergraduate degree from Auburn University and PhD in statistics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Prof Lund is a Professor and department Chair of statistics at the Baskin School of Engineering, University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a 2007 elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association and was the 2005-2007 Chief Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association. He has published over 100 refereed papers and has graduated nearly two dozen doctoral students. His research expertise lies in probability and statistical climatology.

Prof Shekhar C Mande Honorary Distinguished Faculty National Centre for Cell Science Complex and former Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

Prof Shekhar Mande received his M.Sc in Physics from the University of Nagpur in 1984 and PhD in Molecular Biophysics, from IISc Bangalore in 1991. Following his PhD, he worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands. He has served on many national and international committees, including the scientific advisory committee of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Trieste, Italy; Management Council of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai; member of the Council of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; member of the Management Councils of the Solapur University and the Savitribai Phule Pune University; member of the Governing Body of the Indo-French Centre for Promotion of Advanced Research (CEFIPRA), etc. He is currently Distinguished Professor at the Bioinformatics Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University, the position which is generously funded by Dr. Anand Deshpande. He is an elected Fellow of all three Science academies, namely, National Science Academy of India, Allahabad; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. He has been recognized by many awards, mainly the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Biological Sciences in 2005. He served as the Director General of CSIR and Secretary of DSIR, Govt of India during October 2018- April 2022.

Prof Dileep Mavalankar Former Director Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar, Gandhinagar

Prof Dileep Mavalankar received an MBBS and MD in Preventive and Social Medicine from Gujarat University in Ahmedabad, and MPH and Dr P.H from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, USA. Prof Mavalankar is the former director of Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar. His work experience includes faculty and research positions in NHL Municipal Medical College, Ahmedabad, National Institute of Health in Bethesda, USA, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India and Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, NY, USA. Prof Mavalankar has received several honours & awards, including the Paul Harper Award (1990) from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, USA; Hewlett Foundation Fellowship for pursuing Doctor of Public Health at the Department of Population Dynamics, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (1984) and nominated to the membership of Alpha Chapter of Delta Omega, The Honorary Public Health Society, USA (1983). Prof Mavalankar was appointed by the Prime Minister to the high level Missions Steering Group of the National Rural Health Mission constituted by the Government of India in 2005. He was the Chair of the Technical Working Group on Maternal Health by the Government of India. He was also a member of the Steering Group on Health for the 12th Five-year Plan of the Planning Commission of India. He was Member Secretary of the Covid Task Force for Gujarat state appointed by the Chief Minister of Gujarat. He has been listed by Stanford university among the top 2% scientists in Public Health in the world. He is currently working as part-time short-term consultant to the World Bank on climate change and heat health.

Prof Govidan Parayil Dean and Professor, Patel College of Global Sustainability and Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies University of South Florida, USA

Prof Govindan Parayil earned his Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Va. (1990), his M.A. in Applied Economics from American University, Washington, DC (1985), an M.S. in Science, Technology and Policy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. (1983), and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Calicut, India (1978) (formerly Regional Engineering College Calicut). He was a Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Environmental Change at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Since 2017, Prof Parayil has been serving as Dean and Professor of the Dr. Kiran Patel College of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida (USF). At USF he also holds a concurrent appointment as a tenured full professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies. He was Vice-Rector of United Nations University (UNU), Tokyo, Japan (2008- 2014) and Director of UNU Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (2009-2013) while on leave from the University of Oslo, Norway, where he was Professor of Science, Technology and Innovation (2004-2015). He was Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Information and Communications Management, National University of Singapore, and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Social Sciences at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prof Parayil has held visiting appointments at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Virginia Tech, Illinois Institute of Technology, and Fudan University in Shanghai. He served as the 2016-2017 Mark and Melody Teppola Distinguished Visiting Professor at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. He has authored, edited and co-edited six books and published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as numerous book chapters. A leading expert in the field of global sustainability with particular interest in energy and climate change, Professor Parayil follows an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability – from describing problems using knowledge and analytical tools from engineering, management and social sciences to finding innovative solutions that are user-focused and market-driven. By nurturing collaborative research and education in sustainability and fostering local and global academic, business, government and civil society engagement, Prof Parayil aims to work toward transitioning to a resilient and sustainable future.

Shri Jignesh Patel Founder, Charioteer Capital USA

Shri Jignesh Patel received an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Purdue University in 1993, a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1992, and holds a CFA designation. Shri Patel established an investment platform Charioteer Capital in 2018 to make diversified private investments in sectors such as commercial properties and startup ventures. His venture portfolio includes 15+ companies in various domains, typically at the seed level. Prior to that, he was a Senior Managing Director at C-III Capital Partners – a $4 Billion NYC based real estate investment company where he was responsible for investments in opportunistic commercial real estate securities such as CMBS and CRE CLOs. For three years prior to C-III, Jignesh managed National Australia Bank’s (“NAB”) approx. $1 billion CMBS, CRE CDO, and commercial real estate loan and swap portfolio in the US and UK. Previous to NAB, Shri Patel was a member of the CMBS trading desk at Bear Stearns and J.P.Morgan for eight years. He was responsible for secondary trading of commercial real estate backed securities. He also headed the structuring group, where he led the structuring of over $30 billion of transactions. Shri Patel is an active participant in various nonprofit organizations: He is President of Pratham NY Tri-State, President of IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, and a board member of TiE NY. He was previously on the board of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation.

Prof Deepak Phatak Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Prof Deepak Phatak received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from SGSITS Indore in 1969, and his MTech and PhD from IIT Bombay. Prof Phatak, a recipient of Padma Shri award, has been associated with IIT Bombay since 1971. Prof Phatak was the first Dean of Resources of the Institute. He set up the Affordable Solutions Lab (ASL) at IIT Bombay in 2000 and held the ‘Subrao M. Nilekani’ Chair from 2000-2013. He initiated interactive distance education program and business incubation activities at IIT Bombay. He has served on the boards of several companies and institutions, including IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, IDRBT, NIA, PSL, IGNOU, IITGN IIT Indore and NIT Agartala. He is a recipient of the ‘Excellence in Teaching’ award and the ‘Industrial Impact Research Award’ from IIT Bombay. He was elected Fellow of the Computer Society of India (CSI) in 1999, and Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) in 2000. He was listed among the ‘Fifty Most Influential Indians’ by Business Week in 2009. He was conferred Lifetime Achievement Award by Skoch Foundation in 2003, by Data Quest in 2008, by ‘Dewang Mehta Business School Awards’ in 2010, by Interop in 2014, by IIT Bombay in 2014 and by CSI in 2018.

Prof Supreet Saini Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering 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 are in the area of evolutionary microbiology.

Prof Chandrima Shaha Former Professor of Eminence and Former Director National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi

Prof Chandrima Shaha received her MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Calcutta followed by postdoctoral training at the Kansas University Medical Center and The Population Council at Rockefeller University, New York. Prof Shaha is the former Director and Professor of Eminence, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, and the immediate past President of the Indian National Science Academy. Her research interest revolves around the phenomenon of cell death and her laboratory has contributed substantially to the understanding of cell death in unicellular organisms. Amongst the several prestigious awards, she is the recipient of the Ranbaxy Award for Basic Sciences and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar medal of INSA. She was a JC Bose National Fellow, Govt. of India and is an elected Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Trieste, Italy; Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad; West Bengal Academy of Sciences, Kolkata. She served/serving as a Member of the Council of all four Academies of Sciences of India and is on the committee for TWAS Awards. She was a Member of the trustee Board, ‘The Department of Biotechnology/Wellcome Trust India Alliance’, and also a Member of the Governing Board, ‘India International Centre’. She is currently a Member of the Governing Council, Indian Association of Cultivation of Science, Kolkata and the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi. She is a Member of the ‘Scientific Advisory Committee’ of Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology, Trivandrum; the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi and the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa. Formerly, she served on the ‘International Consortium on Male Contraception’, New York; and the ‘Steering Committee for the Task Force on Regulation of Male Fertility’ of the World Health Organization, Geneva. She was Chair of ‘Biotechnology Based Programme for Women’, Department of Biotechnology.

Prof Jayant Singh Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Prof Jayant Singh received his B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur in 1997, M.S. degree in Computer Science and Engineering, in 2002, and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, in 2004, from SUNY Buffalo, USA. Currently, he holds the Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professor and is the head of the department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Kanpur. Prof Singh 's current research interest is in Drug discovery, material modelling, machine learning, energy storage, selective adsorption and separation, and development of novel molecular simulations tools. Prof Singh has authored over 180 peer reviewed articles in international journals of repute. He is a recipient of prestigious awards such as NASI-Reliance Industries Jubilee Platinum Award, IIChE Herdillia Award, SERB STAR Award, JSPS Invitation Fellowship, Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellowship, Young Engineers of Indian National Academy of Engineering, IIChE Amar Dye Chem Award, BRNS Young Scientist Award and DST-BOYSCAST Fellowship. He is also an elected fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Science, India. Dr. Singh has guided 17 PhDs and 30 Masters, and 35 post-doctoral students. Dr. Singh is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Chemical Engineering Communications and serves on the advisory board of ACS Chemical Engineering Data, ACS Omega, Fluid Phase Equilibria. He is the founder and Director of Prescience Insilico Pvt Ltd., which specializes in accelerating drug and material discovery.

Prof Nitish V Thakor Professor of Biomedical Eng, Electrical Eng, Neurology 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. Nitin Kumar Tripathi Director, Special Degree Programs Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Prof Nitin Tripathi is the Director of Special Degree Programmes at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, and is a Professor of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems there. he received his PhD and MTech in Remote Sensing from IIT Kanpur in 1994 and 1987, respectively, and BTech in Civil Engineering from NIT Warangal in 1984. Previously, he served as the Dean, School of Engineering and Technology, Director, Academic Quality, Leader ICT, and Coordinator of Remote Sensing and GIS at AIT. Before joining AIT, he worked at IIT Kanpur as a lecturer and assistant professor (1989-94). He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Geoinformatics and is a life member of Association for Geoinformation Technology and Indian Society of Remote Sensing. Prof Tripathi has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers in the area of geoinformatics applications for health, forest, environment, and marine and coastal zone monitoring, and has guided nearly 100 masters and 25 doctoral students. He is a recipient of the DAE Young Scientists Award (1994), AICTE Career Award (1996), and Osaka City University Distinguished Researcher Award (2007), as well as the Distinguished Alumni Award from NIT Warangal (2006).

Prof Kazuo Yamamoto President Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Prof Kazuo Yamamoto has served AIT in various capacities starting as a former Japanese seconded faculty, and also as the AIT Vice President for Resource Development and Vice President for Administration on a joint appointment with the University of Tokyo and is very familiar with the Institute. He is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Tokyo, Professor for Research and Development Initiative at Chuo University, Visiting Professor at Kindai University, and is currently serving as the President of the Zosui (Water Reuse) Promotion Center in Japan and Audit & Supervisory Board Member of IDEA Consultants Inc. Prof Yamamoto was awarded the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize 2020 for his pioneering work in developing the submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR). He has authored and co-authored 20 books and more than 130 scientific publications and was conferred 12 awards from international institutions including the European Desalination Society, the Japan Society on Water Environment, and the International Water Association, primarily for his notable invention of the world’s first operationally viable submerged membrane bioreactor (MBR).