Keynote Speakers
Padma Shri Prof. Sankar K. Pal
Sankar K. Pal received PhD degrees from Indian Statistical Institute/ University of Calcutta, Kolkata, and Imperial College, London. He joined the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata in 1975 as a CSIR-SRF where he became a full professor in 1987, a distinguished scientist in 1998, the Director in 2005, and the President in 2022. Currently, he is a SERB National Science Chair, Govt. of India, an ISI Emeritus Professor, and an AICTE Distinguished Chair Professor. He founded the Machine Intelligence Unit and the Center for Soft Computing Research at ISI, Kolkata. He is a former INSA Distinguished Professor, INAE Chair Professor and J.C. Bose National Fellow. He also serves as a Scholar-in-Residence of IIT Jodhpur, India, and Vice-President of International Artificial Intelligence Industry Alliance, Hong Kong. He worked at the University of California at Berkeley, CA, USA and University of Maryland at College Park, MD, USA, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA, and US Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC, USA. He held several visiting positions in Italy, Poland, France, Hong Kong and Australia. He has coauthored 21 books and about 500 research publications in the areas of pattern recognition, machine learning, image/video processing, data mining, web intelligence, soft computing, bioinformatics, safety analytics, and cognitive machines. Prof. Pal has made fundamental contributions to machine intelligence research by developing various modern approaches. He pioneered the development of fuzzy set theory, and neuro-fuzzy and rough-fuzzy computing, in general, and their applications in pattern recognition, image processing, machine learning, knowledge-based systems, and data mining, in particular. Prof. Pal received several national/ international awards including the S.S. Bhatnagar Prize (India), the Padma Shri (India), the G.D Birla Award (India), and the Khwarizmi International Award (Iran). He is an IEEE CS Distinguished visitor since 1987. He is/was on the editorial boards of 25 international journals including several IEEE Transactions. He has visited 45 countries as a keynote/ invited speaker. He is a Fellow of TWAS, IAPR, IFSA, IRSS, AAIA, AIIA and all the four National Academies for Science/Engineering in India. Pal is also a foreign member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari
Director, Indian Institute of Management, Mumbai
Vice-Chancellor Tata Institute of Social Sciences
Prof. Manoj Kumar Tiwari (FNAE, FNASc, and FIISE) has been Director, Indian Institute of Management, Mumbai (Earlier known as NITIE, Mumbai) since November 2019. Under his leadership, the institute’s rank has been improved to 9 from 29 in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) ranking for Management. He was a Professor with a Higher Academic Grade - HAG (2016-2019), Head of Department (2013-2016), BOG Member (2016-2018), Dean Planning & Coordination (2017-2019) at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, and currently on-lien for five years. As a researcher, he is working in Manufacturing Systems and Supply Chain Management domain. His research and teaching interests include modeling the Manufacturing Processes and Operations analysis in Supply Chain Networks. Optimization, Simulation, and Computational Intelligence are the main techniques adopted by Prof. Tiwari to automate the decision support system for complex and large-scale problems in the Manufacturing and Logistics System. Several national and international research funding agencies and industries have supported his research interests. He has published more than 354 papers (H Index, Google Scholar – 82, and Scopus - 61) in highly reputed International Journals. He was rated as Rank 1 among the top 100 individual researchers worldwide who published research articles in the International Journal of Production Research during 1985-2010. He is also mentioned as a leading author in the Supply Chain Analytical Techniques field by the Journal of Computer & Industrial Engineering. Recipient of the “Most Influential Researcher Award” in the domain of Operations and Supply Chain Management. He is the Recipient of the David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (IISE, USA, 2023) and the Mahalanobis Distinguished Educator Award from the Operations Research Society of India (ORSI). He is listed among the top 20 most productive authors in the area of Production and Operations Management, as reported in the last 50 years. He serves as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics: Systems, International Journal of Production Research, Expert Systems with Applications, Computers and Industrial Engineering, Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, and Sadhana. Prof. Tiwari is on the editorial board of several International Journals such as EJOR (2010-14), IJCIM, PPC, RCIM, IJAMT, and JTS. Prof. Tiwari serves as Chairman, Sectional Committee of the Global Initiative for Academic Networks (GIAN), Chairman of the Board of UG Studies AICTE, First member of Board of UG Studies AICTE, and Member, Board of Governor at NIFFT Ranchi and Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. Prof. Tiwari is a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IISE, USA), the Indian National academy of Engineering (INAE, India), and the National Academy of Sciences (FNASc, India).
Dr M Rama Manohara Babu
Dr M Rama Manohara Babu has been engaged as a Professor of Practice in IIITDM Kancheepuram since October 2023. Also, He has superannuated from DRDO on 30th June 2023. He completed MS in Mechanical Engineering from JNTUH. He has been awarded PhD by College of Engineering, Andhra University in the field of Acoustic emission testing of Corbon epoxy filament wound pressure vessels. He joined DRDL in the year 1986 in Programme AGNI and has been responsible for developing fabrication airframe structures, testing & evaluation, and integration in the capacity of System Manager and Deputy Project Director.
Dr. Bharat Bhushan
Dr. Bharat Bhushan currently works as the Vice President (Projects, Engineering & Technology) & CIO at Tata Steel Downstream Products Limited, where they are responsible for the organization's growth and expansion projects and its digital transformation journey. Bharat Bhushan holds a Ph.D. in Advanced Data Analytics from the University of Sydney, completed between 2004 and 2007. Bharat also obtained a Master's Degree in Management from the Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi, from 2013 to 2015. He is a Visiting Faculty at XLRI, Jamshedpur, IIM Sambalpur and VGSOM, IIT Kharagpur mainly teaching Digital Transformation, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, Management Information Systems, and Machine Learning to Experienced Professionals and MBA students.
Theodore T. Allen
Theodore T. Allen, Professor of Integrated Systems Engineering and Computer Science Engineering (Courtesy) Dr. Allen joined OSU in September 1996, bringing extensive experience from his tenure as a full-time intern at Ford Motor Company. His career has been dedicated to designing and implementing optimization, quality assurance, and digital trust solutions for manufacturers, healthcare organizations, and supply chain management. He serves as the Simulation Area Editor for Computers & Industrial Engineering (Impact Factor: 7.9) and as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Manufacturing Systems (Impact Factor: 12.1). Notable achievements include his collaboration with DHL Supply Chain, a finalist in the 2023 INFORMS Edelman Award, credited with saving over $100 million in fuel and outsourcing costs. His work on public awareness and education with FactSpread is a finalist for the 2024 INFORMS Innovative Applications in Analytics Award, potentially impacting millions by promoting vaccination. Additionally, his research on anti-fragility in cybersecurity received the 2022 Department of Defense University Consortium for Cybersecurity (DoD UC2) Award for Achieving Mission Resilience & Anti-Fragility. Dr. Allen has also received numerous best paper awards and six teaching awards. In addition to his involvement with CDME, he chairs the Integrated Systems Engineering Prize Committee, serves as the Faculty Director of Industrial Cybersecurity for the Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence, and contributes as a member of the University Information Security & Privacy Advisory Board. He also holds the position of VP of Communications for the INFORMS Public Sector Operations Research Section.
Prof. Pradeep Kumar Ray
Professor Pradip Kumar Ray, presently Emeritus Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE) and Adviser, Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM) , Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, received his PhD (in 1991 in the field of Productivity Engineering and Management of Manufacturing and Service Functions) and MTech (IE & OR) (in 1981) degrees from IIT Kharagpur, and Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering (in 1979) degree from IIEST Shibpur, India. Professor Ray with more than forty two years of diversified experience – eight years at General Electric Company of India and more than thirty four years of teaching and research experience at IIT Kharagpur- has also served as Visiting Professor and Investigator at a number of universities abroad, like Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus; USF, Tampa, USA; CQU, Gladstone, Australia; PNGUNRE, PNG; USP, Fiji, Aston University, Birmingham, UK, etc and trained in Japan on Production Management/JIT-based Manufacturing. A former Head of ISE department and Dean of VGSoM of IIT Kharagpur, Professor Ray is a certified Lead Assessor for ISO-9001 registration, and actively involved in a number of industrial consulting and research projects (31 such projects till date) in his interest areas. He is a member of several professional bodies, such as Indian Society of Ergonomics, INFORMS and IIMM, a Fellow of World Academy of Productivity Sciences (WAPS) and a Fellow of Institution of Engineers (India). He is a recipient of prestigious P C Mahalanobis Award of Operational Research Society of India (ORSI) for his outstanding contribution in the field of Engineering in the year 2018, APO National Award for Productivity Technical Expert in the year 2022, IEA/Tsinghua Award for contribution in Post-graduate Educational Program and International Collaborative Research in Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics in the year 2023, and SRESA Life-Time Achievement Award for the year 2024 by Society for Reliability and Safety (SRESA) for contribution in HFE application for reliable and safe production systems.
Prof. Biswajit Mahanty
Prof. Biswajit Mahanty is a Professor at the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at IIT Kharagpur. He was Dean (Planning and Coordination) of IIT Kharagpur during 2013-2017. Earlier, he was Head of the Department of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering during 2009-12. Professor Mahanty has obtained his B.Tech (Hons) degree in Mechanical Engineering, and his M.Tech and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering and Management—all from IIT Kharagpur. He has a rich and varied professional career with over six years of industrial experience and more than 33 years of teaching, research, and industrial consulting work experience. His areas of interest include system dynamics, operations research, information systems and supply chain management. He has guided 22 doctoral and about 200 undergraduate and post-graduate level dissertations. He has carried out more than 20 industrial consulting projects and 10 sponsored research projects. He has got about 100 publications in a number of well-known international journals. He is also an author of the book “Responsive Supply Chain” published by the prestigious CRC press. He has developed a 29-lecture NPTEL course on MIS and two 40-lecture NPTEL MOOCS courses on Decision Modeling. He has also taught in the school of Management at AIT, Bangkok as a visiting faculty.
Angshuman Bhattacharya
Angshuman Bhattacharya is working as AI project Manager for Adani AI Labs in Kolkata. He has completed his MA in Economics from Jadavpur University. He is expert in the area of data science and machine learning.
Sameer Abdul Azeez
Sameer Abdul Azeez is Group Director (Technology Management) at the Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL), DRDO, at Kochi, Kerala. He is a mechanical engineer with post-graduation in Industrial Engineering & Management from IIT Kharagpur. He has around 20 years of experience in the areas of design, analysis, simulation, development and testing of sonar systems for the Indian Navy, with major contributions in the implementation of concepts of human factors engineering and systems engineering. He is also the project director responsible for establishing a state-of-the-art lake test facility for R&D in underwater systems. His research interests include ergonomics, systems analysis and technology management.