Ninth Academic Advisory Council

Prof Ravi Banavar Professor, Systems and Control Engineering Indian Institue of Technology Bombay

Prof Banavar is a Professor in the Systems and Control Engineering group at IIT Bombay, a unique interdisciplinary group in the country exclusively offering graduate education (Masters and doctoral program) in the field. He was the Convener of the group for nearly 6 years from 2009 onwards. During his convenership, the strength of the group grew from 5 to 9 members, with academic strengths in nonlinear control, switched systems, optimization, geometric mechanics, formation and cooperative control, robotics and adaptive control. His research interests are broadly in the area of geometric mechanics, nonlinear and optimal control, locomotion with applications in aerospace, mechanical and micro-robotics. He received his BTech from IIT Madras, M.S from Clemson University and PhD from University of Texas, Austin. After a short stint as an instructor at the University of California, Los Angeles, he joined the Systems and Control group in IIT Bombay in 1993. He has held visiting appointments at TU Munich and Supelec, Gif-sur-Yvette. He was the Pratt and Whitney Visiting Chair Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IISc from July to Dec 2015, a Visiting Professor from January-May 2017 in the Department of Electrical Engineering in IIT Gandhinagar, and is currently a Guest Professor in the same institute. He is an Associate Editor of the Elsevier journal, Systems and Control Letters, as also the Taylor and Francis publication, The International Journal of Control.

Prof Michael H Bergin Professor Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University USA

Prof Michael H Bergin is currently a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University and Faculty Network Member of The Energy Initiative. His general research focus is on the influence of air pollution on both climate and human health. Prof Bergin’s specific interest is particulate matter (PM) in which he has done a wide range of studies on the emission, formation, deposition and impacts of PM. More recently he has been studying the influence of PM on human health with emphasis on determining the relative contributions of sources (such as biomass burning and vehicular emissions) to acute health impacts. He was also involved in developing and deploying the next generation of air quality sensors to inform citizens on the quality of the air they are breathing so that they can make informed decisions to improve their air. Prof Bergin’s vision involves combining a multidisciplinary, multicultural approach to research and education that brings together researchers from around the world to collectively work together to make the air cleaner. He has won several awards for teaching and research including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest award bestowed upon an engineer/scientist at the onset of their careers.

Dr Jamshed Bharucha Former President Cooper Union New York

Dr Jamshed Bharucha is the inaugural Vice Chancellor of SRM University, Andhra Pradesh in Amaravati, in the newly planned capital city of the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. He previously served as Distinguished Fellow and Research Professor & Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Dartmouth College and as the 12th President of Cooper Union from July 2011 through June 2015. Prior to becoming President of Cooper Union, Dr Bharucha was Provost and Senior Vice President of Tufts University and Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Music and in the Medical School’s Department of Neuroscience. His research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, focuses on the cognitive and neural basis of the perception of music. He was editor of the interdisciplinary journal Music Perception and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Prof Frederick L Coolidge Professor, Psychology Department University of Colorado Colorado, USA

Prof Coolidge is a Professor of Psychology at University of Colorado (UCCS), USA. He received his BA, MA, and Ph.D from the University of Florida and completed a two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at Shands Teaching Hospital, University of Florida. He joined UCCS in 1979 and served as the Chair of the Department from 1986-1989 and as the Clinical Director from 1981-1984. Prof Coolidge is a three-time Fulbright Fellowship Award recipient (India, 1987, 1992, 2005). He has received three teaching awards including the lifetime designation, University of Colorado Presidential Teaching Scholar, received the UCCS Letters, Arts, and Sciences Annual Outstanding Research and Creative Works Award, 2004-2005, and the UCCS Annual Faculty Award for Excellence in Research, 2006-2007. Prof Coolidge is a member of the Association for Psychological Science and the European Society for Human Evolution. He teaches introductory statistics, cognitive evolution, dream interpretation as a psychotherapeutic technique, and evolutionary neuropsychology. He has published eight books and over 140 journal articles.

Prof. Bakul Dholakia Former Director Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad

Prof Bakul Dholakia is a Professor at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He was the Director of Adani Institute of Infrastructure Management. During his 47 years of professional career, Prof Dholakia has served in various capacities and headed several committees most notable of which include the Director, Reserve Bank of India Chair, Dean, Chairman of the MBA Program and Chairman of Economics Area at IIMA. He has also served as the Board Member of Reserve Bank of India Western Area Board, Chairman of the National Board of Accreditation for Technical Education in India and External Director on the Board of public and private sector companies. Over the last two decades, Prof Dholakia has worked on numerous government committees including the Rangarajan committee on pricing and taxation of petroleum products and the expert group on pension fund constituted by the government of India. He has also been a member of the jury for various corporate excellence awards and selection committees for CEOs. A Gold Medalist from Baroda University and with a Doctorate in Economics, Prof Dholakia has guided 19 PhD students and received the IIMA Best Professor Award for his teaching contributions. His achievements in institution building and contribution to management education in India have been recognized nationally and internationally through various awards and honors including 2007 Padma Shri by the Government of India and 2008 Bharat Asmita National Award by the Honorable Chief Justice of India. He was honored by the Association of Indian Americans in North America (AIANA) at the World Gujarati Conference at New Jersey, Global Associations of Business Schools and was nominated to the Board of Global Foundation for Management Education to represent Asia.

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

Prof Guimarães is a Full Professor (Professor Catedrático) at ISCTE-IUL, graduated in Electrotechnical Engineering at the Technical University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal, in 1983, where he also completed his MsC (1987) and PhD (1992). He received the title of Agregado em Informática in July 1999, from the University of Lisbon. From 1986 to 1997, he taught at the Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering Department of IST/UTL, and from 1997 to 2012 at the Informatics Department of the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. He was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (2003-2009). In 2010, he was Invited Professor at the Technical University of Berlin, Institut für Psychologie und Arbeitswissenchaft, Fak V - Verkehrs- und Maschinensysteme. From 1982 to 1997, he was a researcher of INESC, Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Lisbon, Portugal, and is a member of LASIGE/FCUL since 1997. From 1989 to 1991, he was a consultant for Bell Labs, AT&T, Murray Hill, New Jersey, “Software Systems Principles Research Lab’’. He was a member of Executive Board of PUUG (Portuguese Unix Users Group)(1992-1998), one of the individual founders of Eunet Portugal, later KPNQwest Portugal. From 1996 to 2001, he co-founded of Ergoprocesso (Consulting services), 4VDO - Sistemas e Serviços Multimédia SA (Video indexing services) and On TV - Sistemas e Serviços de Televisão Interactiva SA (Interactive Television Systems integrator). ACM Senior Member (since 2012), Member of ACEEU (www.aceeu.org), Member (Mgmnt) of ISOC (PT).

Prof. Surendra Prasad Former Director IIT Delhi delhi

Prof Prasad has held many positions in his illustrious career at IIT Delhi including Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Deputy Director and Director. As a Director, he was responsible for a number of innovative schemes for attracting top faculty talent, creating an environment for impactful research and significant up-gradation of infrastructure. Currently he is an Emeritus Professor at IIT Delhi, and the Chairman, National Board of Accreditation. He was a Visiting Research fellow at the Loughborough University of Technology, Loughborough, UK from 1976 to 1977 and a visiting faculty at the Pennsylvania State University, USA. Prof Prasad has received numerous awards and honors during his career including the Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in 1987 and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Engineering Sciences in 1988. He is a Fellow, Indian Academy of Engineering; Fellow, Indian National Science Academy, and Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.

Prof Mythily Ramaswamy Former Professor TIFR Centre for Applicable Mathematics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Bangalore

Prof Mythily Ramaswamy has been a professor in the school of mathematics at TIFR, Bangalore. She received the Fulbright Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship, 2016-17. She was awarded the Kalpana Chawla Award for women scientists in 2004. She is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Ramanujan Mathematical Society, Proceedings of Indian Academy of Sciences Mathematical Sciences and Boundary Value Problems. Currently she is also a guest professor at IIT Gandhinagar and serves as a board member of IIT Gandhinagar and NIT Calicut Board of Governors and is a member of the IISERs standing committee.

Prof Supreet Saini Assistant Professor Indian Institue of Technology Bombay

Prof Saini is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. Prior to joining IIT Bombay, he was an Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering at IIT Gandhinagar (2010 - 2012), where he also headed the Faculty Recruitment Committee among other responsibilities. Prof Saini completed his PhD in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2010) and BTech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi (2005). 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. Dheeraj Sanghi Director Punjab Engineering College Chandigarh

Prof Sanghi is currently Director of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. He was a visiting faculty of Computer Science and Engineering (2015 - 2017) at IIIT Delhi where he also served as the Dean of Academic Affairs and the Dean of External Relations. From 2008 – 2010, he was the Director, LNM Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), a public-private partnership University in Jaipur. He was the Dean of Academic Affairs at IIT Kanpur from 2011 to 2014. He has also been head of Prabhu Goel Research Center for Computer and Internet Security, and also of the Institute Computer Center. His other roles have included Student counseling, Graduate admissions, and Curriculum design. He is passionate about improving higher education and runs a popular blog on the topic. During 2006, he visited about 70 colleges in India to understand issues in higher education and advise students regarding career planning, including the need to do post-graduate studies. Prof Sanghi has a BTech from IIT Kanpur, and M.S and PhD from University of Maryland. His research interests lie in Computer Networks and Network security.

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

Prof Shaha is Professor of Eminence at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, where she served as Director till late 2016. She is President of the Indian National Science Academy (2020–2022) and also served for a year as the honorary executive Director of the Indian National Science Academy spanning 2016-2017. Prof Shaha received her MSc and PhD degrees from University of Calcutta followed by a stint for post doctoral work at Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas and The Population Council, New York, USA. Prof Shaha is a JC Bose Fellow and was elected as Vice-president (International Relations) of the Indian National Science Academy (2015) and is currently serving the term. She is elected Fellow of the The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) (2014), Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Delhi (2008), Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore (2004), Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, India (1999) and a Fellow of West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology (2011). She is Council Member of the Indian National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She is recipient of the Ranbaxy Science Foundation Award for Basic Medical Research (2010), Om Prakash Bhasin Award (2014), Prof Archana Sharma Memorial award, National Academy of Sciences (2013), Chandrakala Hora Memorial Medal from Indian National Science Academy (2013), Darshan Ranganathan Memorial award (2010), Department of Biotechnology ‘Special Award’ (2003) and Shakuntala Amirchand Award of Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi (1992). Prof Shaha’s current research interests include elucidating the regulatory processes of cell death and the associated mechanisms.

Prof Shyam Sunder Professor of Accounting, Economics, and Finance Yale University USA

Prof Shyam Sunder is the James L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at the Yale School of Management; Professor in the Department of Economics; and Fellow of the Whitney Humanities Center. He is a world-renowned accounting theorist and experimental economist. His research contributions include financial reporting, information in security markets, statistical theory of valuation, and design of electronic markets. He is a pioneer in the fields of experimental finance and experimental macroeconomics. Prof Sunder has won many awards for his research that includes six books and more than 200 articles in the leading journals of accounting, economics and finance, as well as in popular media. Prof Sunder’s current research includes the problem of structuring U.S. and international accounting and auditing institutions to obtain a judicious and efficient balance between regulatory oversight and market competition. His recent co-authored book, Risky Curves: On the Empirical Failure of Expected Utility, was published by Routledge in 2014 and his article “Higher Education Reforms in India” was published in the Oxford Handbook of the Indian Economy in 2012. He is a past president of the American Accounting Association, former director of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at Yale, honorary research director of Great Lakes Institute of Management in Chennai, and distinguished fellow of the Center for Study of Science and Technology Policy in Bengaluru.

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

An internationally distinguished researcher and higher education leader, Satish K Tripathi, PhD, was appointed the 15th president of the University at Buffalo in 2011. 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. Prof Tripathi graduated at the top of his class from Banaras Hindu University in India and holds a doctorate in computer science from the University of Toronto, as well as three master’s degrees- one in computer science from the University of Toronto and two in statistics from the University of Alberta and Banaras Hindu University. A fellow of the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he was awarded honorary doctorates from the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, and Brock University in Canada. An active leader in the national higher education community, Prof Tripathi serves on the board of directors for the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, as a member of the Mid-American Conference Council of Presidents Executive Committee, and on the boards of the NCAA Division I, the Digital Preservation Network, and Internet2. Appointed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo as an inaugural co-chair of the Western New York Regional Economic Development Council in 2011, he served in this position until 2017.

Prof Mahesh Tandon Managing Director Tandon Consultants Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi

Prof Tandon is an international expert in the field of Structural Engineering. Many of the structures designed by Prof Tandon have been widely acclaimed and have received recognition in India as well as internationally. He is President, Indian Association of Structural Engineers (2015-16) and President, Indian Society of Wind Engineering (2015-16).Under the AICTE-INAE program he was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at IITs @ Kanpur, Roorkee & Gandhinagar (2005-2015). He is a Fellow of INAE, the past Chairman of the National Information Center for Earthquake Engineering at IIT Kanpur and the past President of Indian Concrete Institute. Some of his major projects include the Viaducts, Bridges, Stations Underground Constructions and Depots of the Metros at Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kochi, Noida, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur, Lucknow and Gurgaon. Other transportation structures include the Bangalore-Electronic City Elevated Expressway, several Flyovers and Interchanges in the cities of Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Guwahati at important road crossings, and the structures of Kuala Lumpur Light Rail, Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway and Delhi-Badarpur Expressway. Monumental Building projects include the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi, the Khalsa Heritage Memorial Complex at Anandpur Sahib, Punjab and the Precast Factory for Samtel at Ghaziabad. Prof Tandon has made significant contributions in the development of a culture for innovation in structural engineering both within and outside his organization by sharing his expertise and experience. His special areas of interest also include motivating the next generation to adopt Civil Engineering as their profession and vocation in life.