Programme Head

Dr. Janaki Balakrishnan anchors the Complex Systems Programme in the School of Natural Sciences & Engineering at NIAS. She obtained her PhD in Theoretical High Energy Physics from the University of Delhi. She has subsequently worked and published in a wide range of areas covering many diverse areas of physics, ranging from quantum field theory in curved space and theoretical high energy physics to dynamical systems theory and biological physics. She was an Associate Professor of Physics at the Central University of Hyderabad for several years before moving to Bangalore. Earlier she has held Visiting and other positions at various places including the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, Centre for Artificial Intelligence & Robotics (CAIR), Bangalore, CMMACS, Bangalore, JNCASR, Indian Institute of Science, Raman Research Institute, The University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, U.K., Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences, Leipzig, Germany, the Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany, etc.

Prof Narendar Pani is an economist by training who takes a multidisciplinary approach to the Indian political economy issues. In this effort, he has relied on a method derived from the writings of MK Gandhi. Over the last three and a half decades, he has held positions in academia and the media. His books include, ‘Inclusive economics: Gandhian method and contemporary policy’ (Sage, 2002); ‘Redefining Conservatism: An essay on the bias of India’s economic reform’ (Sage, 1994); and ‘Reforms to pre-empt change: Land legislation in Karnataka’ (Concept, 1983). He is also one of the editors of ‘Bengaluru, Bangalore, Bengaluru: Imaginations and their times’ (Sage, 2010).  

He was a member of the Task Force on Manufacturing set up by the Government of Karnataka, 2013. 

He was a member of the Working Group set up by the Planning Commission, New Delhi, to review the performance of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act. 

He was a member of the Steering Committee for the Evaluation Study on Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) conducted by the Programme Evaluation Organization of the Planning Commission, New Delhi. 

He was a member of the Board of Governors of the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, from 2003 to 2009. 

He was a member of the editorial advisory board of the Journal for Social and Economic Development, an academic journal brought out by the Institute for Social and Economic Change Bangalore, India, from its inception till 2009. 

He won the Citibank Pan Asia Journalism Award for 1992.  The award was given for writing on trade issues.  The piece that won the award was on the environment as a trade barrier.

Carol Upadhya, a social anthropologist, studies a range of social transformations in contemporary India, including processes of spatial and social mobility,the globalisation of cities and provincial towns and the urbanisation of rural landscapes; speculative land and real estate markets and their implications for local communities; and skilling, labour migration, and employment. She recently completed an ethnographic monograph on the Indian software industry, Reengineering India: Work, Capital, and Class in an Offshore Economy (Oxford University Press, 2016).Prof. Upadhya earlier co-directed the Provincial Globalisation research programme.She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (USA), Azim Premji Foundation, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), WOTRO Science for Global Development of the NWO, Netherlands, and the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (Netherlands). She has been a visiting scholar at Central European University, Budapest, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Goettingen, Germany, and the International Institute of Asian Studies, Amsterdam. Upadhya is anEditorial Advisorfor the journal Contributions to Indian Sociology.Prior to joining NIAS, Prof. Upadhya taught in the PG Department of Sociology at SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai. 

Carol Upadhya's recent research has focused on international migration, transnationalism, and regional diasporas; labour and capital in the software industry; urbanisation and the globalisation of cities; and land rights.

Joined NIAS on 1st September 2002. Most significant research contribution: Study on non-human primates contributing to significant understanding of human sociality. Dr. Sindhu Radhakrishna holds a master's degree in psychology and a doctorate in animal behaviour. 

Her research interests are in the fields of primatology, behavioral ecology and conservation biology, and her work has focused on gaining a better understanding of social behaviour and communication in nocturnal primates. She was awarded the INSA Young Scientist's Award in recognition of the significance of her doctoral research on the behaviourial ecology of the Slender loris, a nocturnal primate found in southern India

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.

Sangeetha Menon joined National Institute of Advanced Studies, in January 1996, in the Indian Institute of Science campus, Bangalore (India). Her interview and appointment was led by an illustrious group of scientists like Dr Raja Ramanna (Founding Director of NIAS), Prof CV Sundaram, Prof BV Sreekantan and Prof RL Kapur. Subsequently she conceptualised and commenced the NIAS Consciousness Studies Programme along with BV Sreekantan (former Director, TIFR and Honorary Professor, NIAS). This was the first academic group that started in India to study consciousness with an interdisciplinary and a multidisciplinary mandate. Sangeetha is a philosopher with a keen interest in consciousness. Her major area of research is in philosophy of psychology. Her expertise is in Indian philosophy, consciousness studies, philosophy of psychology, philosophy and psychology of self. She works with her colleagues at NIAS and collaborators worldwide to create and encourage a first-person centered approach to understanding consciousness and cognitive capabilities that favours experiential well-being for all. Dr Menon's professional qualifications include degrees in biology and philosophy. She is a first rank holder and gold medalist from Maharaja's College for Women, Trivandrum for post-graduate degree in philosophy. The thesis for her doctoral degree, from University of Kerala, is on the concept of consciousness in the Bhagavad Gita which was completed with junior and senior research fellowship from University Grants Commission, India.

Research Interest: 

Prof Menon's major area of research is in philosophy of psychology. Her expertise is in Indian philosophy, consciousness studies, philosophy of psychology, philosophy and psychology of self. She works with her colleagues at NIAS and collaborators worldwide to create and encourage a first-person centered approach to understanding consciousness and cognitive capabilities that favours experiential well-being for all. Sangeetha Menon started her research with a comparative study of consciousness, from the East and the West, focusing on the theories of agency, emotion, freedom, self, and human well-being in the Bhagavad Gita. Subsequently, she focused on Indian philosophical concepts criss-crossing the works of philosophers: Sankaracharya, Abhinavagupta, Narayana Guru et al. and bringing in Indian aesthetics and dramaturgy to understand cognitive dimensions of creative expressions and personal agency. Her initial papers argue for an epistemological shift that considers the ontological primacy of self, and the importance of the experiencer that would present the 'harder problem' of consciousness. While some of her initial studies were deeply metaphysical and philosophical in approach, she moved on to engaging philosophy with biology and psychology to understand the primary issue in consciousness, which is the 'self'. She is one of the originators of the field of Indian psychology, guiding research in well-being studies, life-sustaining values, self-transformation, and artistic experience. One of her primary contributions in consciousness studies is presenting and engaging with the concept and experience of self from the neurobiological and philosophical point of view, and theorising a 'self-challenged brain and brain-challenged self'.

Prof. Sharada Srinivasan is a Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. She received the Padhmashri, the fourth highest civilian award from Government of India last year in Archaeology in 2019.  She has made pioneering contributions to the study of archaeology and history of art from the perspective of exploring engineering applications in these disciplines.  Prof. Sharada Srinivasan’s landmark contributions include archaeometric characterisation of bronzes of South India using lead isotope analysis and archaeometallurgical studies on ancient mining and metallurgy in southern India. These span studies on the production mechanisms of high carbon wootz steel and documentation of artisanal technologies such as Aranmula high tin bronze metal mirror making, bronze casting at Swamimalai and ancient and continuing traditions of high-tin bronze working, while she has worked on artefacts in the Government Museum, Chennai, British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, ASI and so on.  Prof. Sharada Srinivasan is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and World Academy of Art and Science. Her awards include the Dr. Kalpana Chawla Young Women Scientist Award for 2011, the Indian Institute of Metals, Certificate of Excellence 2007 and Materials Research Society of India Medal 2006, the Malti B. Nagar Ethnoarchaeology Award (2005), and the DST-SERC Young Scientist Fellowship, the Flinders Petrie Medal 1989 from University of London, the Materials Research Society Graduate Student Award 1996, the DST Nurture Scheme and Young Scientist Awards and the British Chevening Scholarship for her Phd work. She has been a Forbes Research Associate at the Department of Scientific Research and Conservation, Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, USA in 1999 and Homi Bhabha Fellow at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore from 1996-98.  She has been a co-recipient of awards from UKIERI, UK, (on pioneering iron and steel metallurgy), AHRC, UK, (on interfaces between archaeology and drama), SSHRC Canada, Royal Society, National Science Foundation and other international bodies.   She is first author of the book ‘India’s Legendary Wootz Steel’ and contributing author to ‘Ecstasy of Classical Art’, the bronze catalogue of National Museum, Delhi and co-editor of ‘Digital Hampi’ on digital explorations into the art and architecture of Hampi.  She is on the Standing Committee of the international Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys Conference.  She has also been an accomplished exponent of the classical dance form of Bharata Natyam and has given numerous lecture-demonstrations such as on the artistic and scientific perspectives on the Chola Nataraja bronze at international museums such as Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007) and with a photo-exhibition on the theme at Space City, Toulouse (2009) apart from national venues.   She has earned her PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (1996) on Archaeometallurgy of South Indian bronzes; MA from School of Oriental & African Studies, London (1989) and BTech in Engineering Physics from IIT Bombay (1987).

Anitha Kurup is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences  and Head of the Education Programme. She leads the National Gifted and Talented Education Program in India anchored at NIAS. Her research interests span the broad disciplines of education and gender studies. Her recent publications “Trained Scientific Women Power: How much are we Losing and Why?” and “Trends Report: Creation and Analysis of Database of PhDs in India (1998-2007)” have been widely appreciated. As part of the Gifted Education research, she and her team have developed Indian based protocols to identify the gifted children in the age group 3-18 years for different populations- urban and rural. They have  been working on the standardisation of the identification protocols. Along the same lines she is developing a multi-level multi-stage model for mentoring gifted children in rural and urban India. She was part of the National core team that developed a 4-year integrated curriculum for pre-service teachers training for India. As part of the sub-committee, she contributed to the development of disability and special education as one of the streams of the four year integrated pre-service teacher education curriculum.  She and her team on Vocational education have initiated an exploratory study on understanding the skill gaps and aspirations of the diploma/ITI holders in the manufacturing sector in Bangalore. The study will be used to develop a research agenda in vocational and higher education in India. Her doctoral work on the quality of primary education in rural India is one of the earliest often cited work on grounded research in classroom processes and school –community relationship in rural India. Prof Anitha Kurup's expertise in gender covers a wide spectrum, from examining conceptual and methodological strands of gender relations to political participation and decentralised governance. Prof. Anitha Kurup was a Member, Governing Board of ISEC, Bangalore, and Member, Academic Council, Christ University.  She has several publications to her credit. Prof Anitha Kurup was awarded the Fulbright Nehru Senior Research Fellowship for 2011-2012 and was hosted at the University of California, Davis. Prof Anitha Kurup is also the Chair and Academic Head of Ph.D. Programme.