Adjunct Faculty

Dr. Ashwagosha Ganju is a snow science and avalanche expert with over 32 years of experience at the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO). He holds a PhD in Quaternary Environment Reconstruction and advanced degrees in Geology from Punjab University. As Director of SASE, he led numerous pioneering initiatives in avalanche forecasting, climate impact assessment, remote sensing, and cryospheric hazard mitigation. He spearheaded major projects like PARWAT, HIMVIVIDHITA, HIM SANDESH, and ANUMAN, and developed advanced models and training systems for snow and avalanche risk management in the Himalayas.

He has advised the Indian Army on safe troop mobility, established observatories across the Siachen region, and trained personnel in avalanche rescue and safety. Dr. Ganju has presented his work at international forums, including Switzerland, Canada, Japan, and Antarctica, and has collaborated with agencies like DST, MoES, and NASA-ISRO. His work has earned him multiple awards, including the Defence Technology Spin-Off Award and the HR Leadership Award.

A prolific researcher, Dr. Ganju has authored over 70 papers and two books, contributing significantly to the field of cold region science making him a key figure in Himalayan environment studies and disaster risk reduction.

Prof. Rajat Mazumder is a field geologist with a specialization in sedimentology and stratigraphy. He earned a Ph. D in Geology in 2002 (Jadavpur University, India) and have 23 years of postdoctoral research and teaching experience in India, Japan (JSPS Postdoc, 2002-2004 at Yokohama National University and JSPS invited research fellowship for 2 months in 2008), Germany (Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow at Munich University, 2005-2006), Australia (UNSW Sydney, Curtin University), Malaysia (Curtin University) and Oman (German University of Technology in Oman).

He has participated in field expeditions in the remote areas of Japanese islands, east Malaysia, Western Australia and Germany. Prof. Mazumder has published over 100 research papers both as a single author and as a member of the international research team since before his Ph. D award in peer reviewed Earth science journals. He is currently one of the subject editors of J. Geol. Soc. London, an associate editor of Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, Sedimentology (IAS), Geology (Geol. Soc. America), and Geol. Soc. America Bull.

Dr. Nanjangud C Narendra (NCN) is a retired Master Researcher at Ericsson Research, currently working as a Consultant Technologist in Artpark, IISC, Bangalore. Prior to joining Ericsson, he worked in MS Ramaiah University, Cognizant, IBM Research, HP India and Motorola India. He has about 32 years R&D experience in the Indian IT industry. His research interests span Software Engineering, Workflow Management, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Edge Computing, Data Management and Analytics, 5G/6G applications, AI/ML applications. He has published over 120 papers in international conferences and journals. He has been Program Committee member for several key conferences such as Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (AAMAS), International Conference on Service Oriented Computing (ICSOC), IEEE International Cloud Computing Conference; he was also Program Committee Chair for ICSOC (Industry track) in 2012 and ICSOC (Research track) in 2015. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of Service Oriented Computing and Applications journal and IEEE Transactions on Services Computing journal. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM.

The overarching philosophy of Samira Agnihotri's research is ‘listening ecology,’ which aims to draw attention to diverse voices – human and more-than-human, and in doing so, encourage people to listen more -- to the sounds of nature around them, and to each other. Her work crosses disciplinary boundaries, from birdsong and bioacoustics to anthropology and linguistics, and is embedded in the biocultural landscape of the Biligiri Rangan Hills, where she has worked since 2004 in collaboration with the Solega people.

Dr. Pravin is a visionary neurologist and researcher driven by an unwavering commitment to advancing care for headache disorders, chronic pain, and altered states of consciousness. Bridging meticulous clinical practice with cutting-edge science, he pioneers multidisciplinary strategies that redefine patient outcomes.

As Senior Consultant Neurologist and Clinical Lead at Narayana Health’s Comprehensive Headache and Facial Pain Centre of Excellence (India), he orchestrates innovative therapies for complex cases, while globally shaping education as Director of the World Headache Society Academy and Affiliate Professor at Loyola University (Chicago). His work spans:
🔸 Research: Leading international registries (e.g., Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension Registry) and groundbreaking discoveries like “Burning Vertex Syndrome.”
🔸 Education: Mentoring clinicians across continents and editing seminal textbooks that standardize pain management.
🔸 Advocacy: Championing equitable access to neurological care in underserved regions.

Rooted in empathy and rigor, his mission is to unravel the mysteries of consciousness and pain, transforming insights into hope for patients worldwide.

Shri Rajinder Khanna has served for 46 years with the Government of India.  Initially, as an IPS officer in Orissa, thereafter as an Intelligence Officer in Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) and in his last 8 years in the apex body of national security.

Academic Background: After graduating with Honours in Economics from Hans Raj College, Delhi University, Shri Rajinder Khanna did his Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University in 1978.

Professional Career: Shri Khanna preferred a career in the civil services over joining the private sector and on the basis of a Civil Services examination in 1977, joined the Indian Police Service (IPS) in 1978.
During the Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration (LBSAA), Mussoorie, Shri Khanna was awarded the Director’s Silver Medal for securing the highest marks in Economics.
On completion of basic training, Shri Khanna was allotted to the Orissa Cadre.  From 1979 to 1985, he held several important posts including Superintendent of Police, Puri and Superintendent of Police, Ganjam.  As Superintendent of Police of Puri Shri Khanna received a number of commendations from the Chief Minister for eradicating dacoity in the district. 
Shri Khanna came on secondment to R&AW in November 1985. In his initial years, he dealt from both within the country and outside, security issues related to our neighbourhood.  In the process, he developed an expertise in counter insurgency and counter terrorism. Shri Khanna was appointed as Secretary R&AW (Chief of R&AW) in December 2014 and headed the organization for a period of two years.  
Shri Khanna did a year’s stint in the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) as Officer on Special Duty (Neighboring Countries).  In January, 2018 he was appointed as Deputy NSA with the specific responsibility of enhancing the country’s intelligence by the use of technology.  On July 3, 2024 he was elevated to the rank of Additional NSA. He relinquished the charge of Additional NSA on October 3, 2024.

Ashutosh Simha currently works as a consultant in nonlinear control, robotics and flight dynamics for Indian defense based organizations. Previously he worked as a post-doctoral researcher at TUDelft, Netherlands prior to which he worked at the Institute of Cybernetics, Tallinn, Estonia. He completed his PhD at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in the field of Geometric control theory. His research interests are in Riemannian geometry, Nonlinear dynamics and control, robotics. He is also actively pursuing Vedic studies with Vedanta Bharati, under the guidance of His Holiness Sri Sri Shankarabharati Mahaswamiji.

Swami Narasimhananda is a monk of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1897 and is presently the Secretary of Ramakrishna Mission Sevashrama, Kozhikode, Kerala which runs a higher secondary school from kindergarten to 12th standard and a polyclinic. He is a former editor of ‘Prabuddha Bharata’, an English monthly journal of the humanities and social sciences started by Swami Vivekananda in 1896. He has edited a book containing Swami Vivekananda’s teachings named ‘Vivekananda Reader’. He specialises in Indian Philosophy and Religious Studies. He is a member of the International, Interdisciplinary and Interreligious Research Group on ‘Consciousness Studies’ under the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights, Pontifical University, Rome, Italy. He has publications in Hindi, English, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Bengali, and Tamil.

Prof. B.K. Bansal, a geophysicist by profession, has served the Department of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) for over two decades. He was also the Director of the National Centre for Seismology for two years. After retiring from MoES in March 2021, he was a visiting professor at IIT Delhi for two years. Prof. Bansal specializes in seismology and seismic risk assessment. Under his dynamic leadership, the science of seismology has witnessed a major growth in the country. He has made significant contributions to several programs/missions of national importance, such as real-time monitoring, earthquake forecasting, earthquake early warning, seismic microzonation, scientific ocean drilling in the Indian Ocean, scientific deep drilling in the Koyna intra-plate seismic zone, establishing a national facility for geochronology, creating the National Centre for Seismology, etc. The Indian Institute of Technology honoured Prof. Bansal for his outstanding contributions to seismology and earthquake engineering. He is a recipient of the Hari Narain Award 2019 for lifetime contributions to geophysics and several other such recognitions. In addition to several government publications (monographs, books, manuals, etc.), Prof. Bansal has more than 80 SCI publications to his credit.

Bindu Thirumalai is an educator and has earned her PhD (Education) from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, India.  She has over twenty-five years of experience working across academic, development, government, and corporate sectors.

She is passionate about building teacher capacity at the grassroots level by focusing on technology integration and action research and cultivating meaningful partnerships across academia and government. She applies her diverse and deep experience in academic, development, government, NGO and Corporate technology environments to bring lasting, transformative changes in teacher education. She was Assistant Professor at the premier Tata Institute of Social Science from 2015 to 2024.

 She has led and engaged in research initiatives to drive large-scale interventions focused on teacher education, teaching-learning, curriculum and pedagogy within government education systems. She has deep expertise in course design and development, creating MOOCs for practicing teachers and delivering blended post-graduate certificate programs.  She has implemented state-wide in-service teacher capacity building programs, designed pre-service teacher education curriculum and syllabi and created material to integrate technology with curricula for STEM classroom teaching-learning processes.