People Page

Dr.Prakash is a Marine Scientist. He retired from National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), Ministry of Earth Sciences (GoI), Trivandrum in July 2019 and continued to work as Senior Consultant till September 2021. He also held highest position as Director during 2016-17. The main focuses of his research are on beach and coastal processes including the coastal zone management aspects in the islands and also in the mainland of the country. Over the years, he has completed many research projects sponsored by different central department/organizations like DST, DOD, MoES, UTL, IREL, Atomic Minerals Directorate, etc. Apart from building a strong coastal research group at NCESS, many new results for understanding the placer mineral enrichment on to the beach have been demonstrated and a step-ladder process has been suggested from these projects. More specific accomplishments include sediment budgeting studies for placer mineral for sustainable exploitation with least impact on coastline. As a continuation to this programme a revisit to the placer mining sites was also carried out during 2019 and suggested ways to continue beach mining operation in a sustainable manner. Coastal Zone Management is another important activity carried out by him for the preparation of Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP) and Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) work in the islands and mainland in the country. Rain water harvesting through innovative techniques/methods is also dear to him as a societal programme. He has published more than 50 research papers in national and international journals including a book and two field guide books.

Prof B N Goswami is a Climate Scientist specializing in Variability and Predictability of Climate in general and Indian summer monsoon in particular and the role of Ocean-Atmosphere interactions in climate variability and predictability. Coming from rural Assam, he had his early education in Assam and went on to do a Ph.D in Plasma Physics in Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. After working at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for more than 20 years, he headed the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), Pune from 2006 to 2014. He is well known for his discovery of the Indian Ocean Dipole mode and quantifying the increasing trend ‘extreme rainfall events’ over the Indian region. Leading the Indian Monsoon Mission of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) from IITM, Pune, he elevated the Indian Weather and Climate prediction capability to a level comparable to the best in the world. He has more than 198 peer-reviewed publications in high impact journals including Science and Nature. Prof Goswami received many Awards and Honors including the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in 1995. He is Fellow of All Three leading National Science Academies of India. He is also Fellow of the World Academy of Science (TWAS).

Mr Yadav has served as Distinguished Scientist and Group Director in Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. He has experience of more than four decades. He is an expert in the field of Nuclear Engineering, Design Development and commissioning of Nuclear Systems and Project Management. He has developed many critical technologies to make India self-reliant. Shri Yadav has played a leadership role towards project of National importance.

Mr Yadav is BE(Mechanical) 1975 from the University of Roorkee (since IIT Roorkee), ME (Mechanical) 1982 from IISc. He has undergone one-year training in Nuclear Science and technology in the 19th Batch of BARC Training School. 

He is a recipient of several awards, including the Distinguished Alumni award 2020 from IIT Roorkee.

He is a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Engineering.
 

Divya Hoskere is a PhD scholar at the School of Humanities at NIAS. Her broad area of research includes the study of the Natyashastra, Indian aesthetics and theatrical design. Divya is an accomplished Bharatanatyam artiste and is trained in the traditional puppetry of Karnataka with over 15 years of experience as a national and international performer in both fields. 

Divya holds a Master's degree in performing arts - Dance from Jain University and a Bachelor's degree in Communication Design from PES University. She was named as one of the "Cultural Stars to look forward to" in 2022 by The New Indian Express - national edition. She is a recipient of the Scholarship to Young Artists awarded by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India and is also a Graded Artiste of Doordarshan. Divya received the Junior Research Fellowship (UGC NET JRF) in the field of Performing Arts in 2022. For more see: www.divyahoskere.com

Prof MK Surappa   former Vice-Chancellor of Anna University (2018-2021), Chennai and Founding Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar (2009-2015).  Previously he was the Dean, Faculty of Engineering (2016-17) and Honorary Secretary, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (2004-2009) and President of Bharath Gyn Vigyan Samithi (Unit of people’s science movement) during the period 2001-2009.

He is also Honorary Distinguished Professor for Life at the University of Mysore.

Prof Surappa received his BSc degree from Mysore University and went on to complete his B. E (Metallurgy), M.Sc. and PhD. from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He worked as Research Associate at Drexel University (USA), Cavendish Laboratory at University of Cambridge, UK and at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne. He returned to Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1987 as Assistant Professor and rose to become Professor in the year 1998.

Prof. Surappa has made outstanding R&D contributions to the Science and Technology of Metal Matrix Composites (MMCs). For over three decades, he has pursued many innovative investigations on synthesis, processing- microstructure-property correlation and application development of MMCs based on light alloy matrices.  He has published 100 research papers in peer reviewed Journals and has secured one US and 3 Indian patents.

In his role as a Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at IISc, Prof Surappa was highly instrumental in stimulating, invigorating, and amplifying the quality and rigor in the evaluation process of research output by scholars. As a Founding Director of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Prof Surappa played a very inspiring and a key role in catapulting a new young institution into the Top 10 of the country (NIRF Rankings 2015-16, MHRD, Government of India). As an Honorary Secretary of the Karnataka State Council for Science & Technology, his inspiring leadership had led to the Council being recognized as the top performer across the 31 State Councils in the country.  His penchant passion towards creating societal benefits through Science & Technology, led to a noteworthy and a stellar implementation of a Rainwater Harvesting System in over 23,000 Government Schools across the length and breadth of the State of Karnataka. As a President of the Bharath Gyan Vigyan Samithi (Unit of “Peoples Science Movement”) he catalyzed teams to create awareness on sanitation  & hygiene and enabled in  eliminating the myth behind the ostensible miracles.

 As Vice Chancellor of Anna University, Prof Surappa worked passionately to transform Anna University into high impactful institution. His efforts to restore the legacy and revive the University to its pre-eminent position through fair and transparent governance system are unparalleled.

In the recent years he has been examining and studying the factors contributing to sub-optimum performance of higher educational institutions in India and has been keenly understanding the eco system required to be put in place to make Indian Institutions to be more impactful.

LM Patnaik obtained his PhD in the area of real-time systems  in 1978  and DSc in the areas of computer systems and architectures in 1989 both from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. During 1971-2011 he was on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Science engaged in teaching and research in the areas of computer science and engineering and real-time systems .His teaching and research interests have been in the areas of computer architecture, parallel and distributed computing including high-performance computing, soft computing including neural networks and evolutionary computation, computational neuroscience, theoretical  computer science,  computer cognition including artificial intelligence and machine learning. In these areas he has published over 1300 papers in refereed international journals, conference proceedings, book chapters, books and technical reports.

He has supervised over 30 Doctoral students and over 200 Masters's students in the above areas. He is a Life Fellow of the IEEE,  Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and all the four leading  Science and Engineering Academies of India. As a   Founding Vice Chancellor of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology under the Ministry of Defence, Government of India, he had initiated a number of programs in the areas of nanotechnology and cyber security for defence applications. After his superannuation in 2011, he has been serving as an Honorary Professor with the Indian Institute of Science and Adjunct Professor, INSA Senior Scientist and Honorary Scientist with the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS).

Currently, he is a NASI Senior Scientist and Adjunct Professor with the NIAS. For his research contributions, he has been awarded over  30 Awards, notable among them is the IEEE Computer Society’s Technical Achievement Award . One of his papers on Adaptive Genetic Algorithms has been cited over 4000 times by Google Scholar. Other than his research interests, he has been spending substantial amount of his time in visiting a number of engineering colleges in the country to interact with faculty members and students, to organize conferences and deliver talks, primarily to improve the quality of Indian engineering education.

Click here to know more details about his academic activities.

Before enrolling as a research student, an engineer by profession, he has completed MTech in Microwave Engineering from IIT Delhi, Masters in Financial Management from JBIMS, Mumbai and M Sc (Defence and Strategic Studies) from Madras University.

He is an alumnus of the Defence Services Staff College. He has an advanced diploma in Russian Language. He is an Adjunct Faculty with this institute. A submariner by profession, he has vast experience in the field of naval systems and technologies, projects and systems engineering. After more than three decades of service, he retired as a Commodore from the Indian Navy.

Ekasmayi Naresh is a PhD scholar at the School of Social Sciences.

She is working with Dr. Shalini Dixit and Dr. Debosree Banerjee. With a background in Psychology, her primary areas of interests include mental health and identity. Her doctoral research focuses on the experience of psychotherapy among people of marginalized sexual and gender identities. The research also looks at how psychotherapy is conceptualized in the work of mental health practitioners and in the education curricula of mental health services. Her work seeks to understand how the social context and membership to an identity group interact with disciplinary practices and application.

Prior to joining NIAS, Ekasmayi completed her Master’s in Clinical Psychology from Manipal Academy of Higher Education, in 2020. She graduated from Christ (deemed to be) University with a Bachelor’s in Psychology, Sociology and English Literature, in 2018. Professionally, she has worked as a researcher and mental health therapist for various public and private sector organizations.