Mukesh Khare: Mukesh Khare, a distinguished figure in academic and research circles, is serving as a Professor Emeritus in Civil Engineering Department at IIT Delhi. He earned his PhD Degree in Faculty of Engineering from Newcastle University, UK. Throughout his illustrious career in Environmental Engineering, he authored over 250 publications and several books on urban air quality. He significantly enhanced the global reputation of IIT Delhi's Environmental Engineering group through his leadership and decision-making skills. His illustrious career involves significant contributions to teaching, consulting, research, and editorial activities.
His contributions include founding initiatives like the Master's Programme in Environmental Engineering at IIT Delhi and the Indo-French Unit for Water and Waste Technologies. He also established the Centre for Excellence for Research in Climate Change and Air Pollution. Recognized for his expertise, he was appointed as a Member of the High-Level Task Force in the Prime Minister's Office and served as full -time technical member in the Commission for Air Quality Management for Delhi, NCR, and adjacent areas.
Internationally, he held visiting professorship at esteemed institutions such as the University of West Indies, Ecole des Mine de Nantes in France, Harvard University, and many other universities/institutions worldwide. He continues to shape global discourse on air quality, sustainability, and climate change.
Prateek Sharma: Prateek Sharma is Vice Chancellor, Delhi Technological University. He pursued his Ph. D. degree in Environmental Engineering from Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Delhi. He has more than 28 years of research and teaching experience. His general research interest focusses on environmental systems modelling, statistical applications in environmental and water resources engineering and environmental risk assessment. He has contributed to several high impact academic journals and authored two books in the area of vehicular pollution modelling and stochastic modelling and one monograph. He is a member of several professional societies. As Dean (Academic) at TERI School of Advanced Studies, he was instrumental in creating two centers of excellence at TERI SAS - Sustainability Studies and Waste Management.
He has been admitted as a Fellow of Wessex Institute of Great Britain in 2004, in recognition of outstanding scholarly work in the area of air quality modelling. In 2021, he has also been admitted as Fellow of Institution of Engineers by The Institution of Engineers (India). He is a member of the National Knowledge Network constituted by the Central Pollution Control Board to support the activities of the National Clean Air Programme launched by the Ministry of Environment Forests & Climate Change.
Sri Harsha Kota: Sri Harsha Kota is currently an Associate Professor in Department of Civil Engineering and Chair Professor at Center for Excellence in Research in Clean Air (CERCA) at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. He is a recipient of prestigious Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE)'s Young Engineer Award for the year 2021. He has more than fifteen years of research experience in the field of air quality management. He received his Master's and PhD degrees in Civil Engineering with emphasis on air quality from Texas A&M University, USA. His main areas of interests are in regional/urban air quality management, developing air purifiers, associating air pollution and human health, indoor air pollution and developing emission inventories for air pollutants and greenhouse gases in India. He is actively engaged in research collaborations with scientists in India, USA, UK, European Union and China. He is currently involved in many projects of national importance such as revising Indian national ambient air quality standards, preparing clean air action plans of ~10% non-attainment cities in India, forecasting air quality in Indian metros, and assessing the impact of climate change on vector borne diseases in India.
Chinthala Sumanth: Chinthala Sumanth is currently working as a faculty in the Water and Environment Division, Department of Civil Engineering at NIT Warangal. He is specialized in Air pollution and his doctoral research was on estimating the dispersion of PM10 in open pit mines and has authored more than 20 publications in peer-review journals, conferences, book chapters and books. He received his both Master's and Ph.D. Degree from IIT Delhi. He has been appointed as a task force member for state pollution control board Telangana state, India. He has also contributed as an Expert member for formulating indoor air quality guidelines for India appointed by central pollution control board, India in association with Society for Indoor Environment (SIE). He has also contributed as an Expert member for National Clean Air Programme, launched by Ministry of Forests and Climate Change, Government of India.
He has also worked as a Project Scientist in a European Union Collaborative Project. ECOSEE, which deals with developing innovative materials to reduce indoor Air Pollution. He has worked with various universities and Research Organizations in Europe under ECOSEE to simulate the effect of adsorption and desorption properties of Innovative materials in indoors. Apart from his research, he has contributed as a founding member for BloodConnect Foundation, India's largest student run Initiative which is working on blood shortage.
