Adjunct Faculty

AVM Pawan Kumar graduated from National Defence Academy in 1988 and was commissioned as a Fighter Pilot in Indian Air Force in June 1989. The Air Officer has more than 3000 hours of accident-free flying and has flown Hunters, Jaguars and MIG-27s. He has had an illustrious career with various important assignments in service and been part of all the important courses and exercises in India and abroad. He was also Defence Attache to Czech Republic with concurrent accreditation to Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. He played a major role in various bilateral / Multilateral engagements including various exercises with friendly foreign countries.
Air Vice Marshal Pawan Kumar served as Director General, Defence Space Agency before superannuating on 31 Aug 25. As DG Defence Space Agency, he was instrumental in formulation of Military Space Doctrine and handled all aspects related to space surveillance, communication, PNT, SSA and space weather amongst others.

I am a field-based ecologist and cognitive biologist working at the intersection of animal behaviour, cognition, and conservation. My research seeks to answer a central question: “How are animals adapting to anthropogenic stressors?” By integrating behavioural and cognitive insights with ecological perspectives, I aim to develop context-specific strategies for conserving biodiversity and sustaining ecosystem services in landscapes undergoing rapid urbanization, climate change, and agricultural intensification.

My work spans multiple taxa, including amphibians, reptiles, crows, owls, mammals, and non-human primates, and explores how animals do what they do in environments increasingly shaped by human activity.

Some of my ongoing projects include:

1. Primate novel use of tools and strategies in response to human food provisioning

2. House crow adaptation to urban habitats

3. Amphibian personality in urban environment

4. Herpetofauna ecology and roadkill prevention

5. Ecosystem services and adaptive pest management

6. Mammal ecology and conservation

7. Recovering traditional strategies for human-wildlife coexistence

I am an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Urban Ecology, Biodiversity, Evolution, and Climate Change at Jain University, Bengaluru, India, where I lead the Animal Behaviour and Cognition in Conservation (ABCC) research group. Through my research and mentorship, I strive to bridge fundamental science with applied conservation.

Dr. Meghna Verma, with over 24 years of rich experience spanning industry, teaching, and research is currently Associate Professor and Head-Centre for Sustainability, also former Head of Department of Marketing and International Business at Ramaiah Institute of Management (RIM), Bangalore. She holds Ph.D. in Airport Retail, focusing on retail product purchase behaviour of domestic passengers, from Department of Management Studies, IISc. Bangalore. Since 2009, she has been associated with RIM, where she actively undertakes research projects, including those commissioned by GoK, serves as a reviewer for several reputed international journals and has authored over 60 research papers, including publication in ABDC and SJR-ranked journals. She has presented her research globally at leading institutions such as National University of Singapore (NUS), Copenhagen Business School (CBS), University of Bremen, TU Darmstadt, IIT Roorkee, IIM Indore, CEPT Ahmedabad and others.

Dr. Meghna’s research mainly focuses on consumer behaviour in religious and sustainable tourism, marketing of sustainable transport services, social media marketing, responsible consumption, women safety, crowd behaviour in mass religious events, airport retail, application of AI & AR in retail and service sector. She continues her research exploration aimed at enhancing quality of life, promoting gender equality, social inclusion, climate change and sustainability through a marketing lens.

Her research profile can be view at: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=bP8VSJgAAAAJ&hl=en

Raghu Ananthanarayanan  is a direct disciple of Yogachaarya Krishnamaachaarya and his son  Shri TKV Desikachar and has spent more than a decade in deep study of the Yoga Shastras with them. He has also benefitted from a long association with J. Krishnamurti and Prof. Pulin K. Garg (IIM Ahmedabad). Raghu is also a post-Graduate in Engineering from IIT Madras. 

Raghu, has delved deeply into Yoga and Behavioural Sciences to develop a unique approach to personal unfolding and organizational transformation called “Citta Vidya”.   “Citta Vidya” brings together his understanding of Antaranga Yoga, Human Processes, Theatre and Dance. He has applied this in organizations through a model called the “Tensegrity Mandala”. He has pioneered the use of traditional theatre and the Mahabharata in experiential learning, Leadership Development and Coaching. Raghu has devoted almost four decades to transforming organizational cultures across the spectrum from grass roots developmental organizations to modern industrial organizations.

Raghu has authored several books: Learning Through Yoga; Anataranga Yoga- The Foundation of Indian Psychology and The 5 Seats of Power Learning Through Yoga, The Totally Aligned Organization, Leadership Dharma, Arjuna the Timeless Metaphor, Organizational Development and Alignment: The Tensegrity Mandala (as co-author with Gagandeep Singh). Raghu is engaged in designing an advanced leadership  development and inner transformation based on Indic Wisdom. He is in the process of creating the Centre for Citta VidyA and Indian Psychology in collaboration with the National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore). Currently his wife Sashi and he, donning their role as Chief Mentors are working on nurturing people on a Dharmic Quest at Ritambhara Ashram, situated in the beautiful Nilagiris.

Dr Arshiya Bose is a Human Geographer whose work bridges rigorous academic inquiry with hands‑on conservation practice. She holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Cambridge, UK, where her doctoral research examined market incentives for biodiversity conservation, using sustainability certifications in the coffee sector as a critical lens. Following her doctorate, she was appointed to a Post‑Doctoral Fellowship at ETH‑Zurich, deepening her expertise in agroecological systems and participatory research methodologies.
In 2016, Arshiya founded Black Baza Coffee, a social and conservation enterprise operating in India’s Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot. Over nearly a decade, she has developed and refined a participatory model that engages smallholder producers to restore native tree species on their coffee farms, protect local ecosystems, reduce household debt and strengthen rural livelihoods. This pioneering work earned Black Baza Coffee the Specialty Coffee Association’s Global Sustainability Award in 2025—the first and only Indian organisation to receive this honour. Arshiya is an Acumen Fellow, a National Geographic Explorer and Associate Director of Kinship Conservation Fellows. She holds Coffee Quality Institute's accreditation as a Post‑Harvest Processing Professional and serves as a Lecturer in Post‑Harvest Processing. Her academic and practice interests focus on co‑designing market‑based solutions that deliver tangible social, economic and ecological benefits for smallholder producers and the landscapes they steward.

Dr. R. Natarajan, a Chemical Engineer, joined the Department of Atomic Energy in 1975 and held the post of Director of Reprocessing Group and Project Director of Fast Reactor Fuel Cycle Facility in Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research. Under his leadership, the radioactive hot cell  facility, for establishing the process technology for the reprocessing of fast reactor fuels, was designed, erected and commissioned. He led the team that has successfully completed the reprocessing of plutonium rich fast reactor spent fuel from FBTR (Fast Breeder Test Reactor), which was highly irradiated, which is an international benchmark. This technology is being exploited for the fleet of fast reactors that are being set up in the country now. He was also responsible for the R&D activities of fast reactor fuel reprocessing and scaling up for the medium size demonstration plant as well as the commercial size fuel reprocessing plants. He was also instrumental in the recovery of the Uranium by reprocessing the irradiated thorium, facilitating thorium utilisation in the country. Thus his contributions are vital for the country in attaining self sufficiency, in both the Uranium-plutonium and the Thorium-Uranium reprocessing technologies.

He has over hundred technical presentations and publications to his credit. He has won the prestigious NOCIL Award for Excellence in Design and Development of Process Plant and Equipment for the year 2005 for his contribution in the development of fast reactor fuel reprocessing. He is also the recipient of Indian Nuclear Society's INS award for the year 2006 for his contributions in Nuclear Fuel Cycle technologies. He was awarded the prestigious VASVIK award for the year 2014. He is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and honorary fellow of the Indian Institute of Chemical Engineers.