School of Natural Sciences and Engineering

R. Srikanth is the Dean of the School of Natural Sciences & Engineering, and also heads the Energy, Environment, and Climate Change Program.  He graduated from the Indian School of Mines in 1984 and was awarded the ISM Gold Medal.  He worked in coal mines for six years before commencing his research at the Pennsylvania State University where he completed a dual Ph.D. in Mining Engineering & Operations Research. He joined NIAS in 2016 after a 20-year long career in industry, primarily in Tata Steel. He is currently involved in several Government-appointed committees related to energy security alongside his other duties as faculty and Dean at NIAS.

Research Interests: Air pollution and public health, energy security, coal and mineral policies, environmental policy and governance, sustainable development, and climate change.

Harini Santhanam an environmental scientist with 6+ years’ experience in studying multiple aspects of natural systems such as biogeochemistry, hydro-geological processes and land-water-human nexus from an ecosystem perspective. She has been a long-term researcher with IISc Bangalore, working in multi-disciplinary teams with a focus on water-related issues. She has a Ph.D in coastal ecosystem modelling and a M.Sc. degree in Environmental Science from Anna University, Chennai. She also has UGC-NET eligibility for Lecturership in Environmental Science. Recently, she has also been the Principal Investigator of a DST-funded Woman Scientists project (2015- 2018) at IISc.Her research interests include the use of integrated modelling approaches for aquatic ecosystem investigations, studying the ecosystem-human nexus over the land-water-air continuum and investigating short-term and long-term changes of lacustrine systems using environmental proxies.

My research interests lie in the areas of energy, development, and climate policy. I have worked on trying to integrate perspectives from the natural sciences, engineering, and the social sciences to understand the interconnected aspects of energy production and access, scientific and technological advancement in this sector, and policy shifts and instruments, in terms of their importance for ensuring the development and economic wellbeing of people, especially in the era of acute environmental crises such as climate change.I will be offering a course on Energy Modeling (3 credits) in the upcoming semester though

Rudrodip Majumdar is a Nuclear Engineer with a Ph.D. from North Carolina University, USA. Rudrodip has extensive working experiences in Plasma Fusion Energy, Renewable Energy and Thermal Energy Storages. He is keen to explore innovative and cost-effective technologies for the sustainable development. He has 20 International Journal articles, 6 International Conference proceedings papers and 3 invited Book Chapters in edited International Monographs. Recently, he has published a book chapter titled ‘Sludge hygienisation – a novel technology for urban areas to deal with the incursion of COVID-19 viral particles in wastewater’ as Chapter 11 in C. Chakrabarty et al. (Eds.): The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Green Societies: Environmental Sustainability, Springer Nature Switzerland (2021), which was selected through rigorous peer-review process from an open, competitive call for chapters