Category: 2016 Delegate

Professor Ramamurthy Nagarajan

Dr Nagarajan is currently Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras, and Dean of International & Alumni Relations. He obtained his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering in 1981 from IIT Madras, and a Ph.D. in the same field from Yale University (New Haven, CT, USA) in 1986. From 1986 – 1988, he served as Research Faculty in the Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV; during this tenure, he served as coordinator for research projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Navy. From 1988 – 2003, Dr. Nagarajan was a Senior Technical Staff Member with IBM Storage Systems’ Development Laboratory in San Jose, CA, where he oversaw elimination of ozone-depleting chemicals from IBM’s manufacturing operations, and directed many ground-breaking efforts in the areas of chemical integration & micro-contamination control for hard disk drives.

Dr Nagarajan returned to Chennai in 2003, and served as G.S. Laddha Visiting Professor at A.C. College of Technology for one semester, prior to taking up his position as Professor at IIT Madras in February 2004. His teaching and research endeavours are focused on cleanroom processes, nano-technology and ultrasonic process-intensification. From 2009-2012, he served as Advisor, Office of Alumni Affairs at IIT Madras, and since October 2012, has been serving as the Institute’s first-ever Dean of International & Alumni Relations.

Professor Jing Na

Professor Jing Na is currently also a Marie Curie IIF Research Fellowship holder from European Commission Research Executive Agency and affiliated with the Department of Engineering at the University of Bristol.

He received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China, in 2004 and 2010, respectively. He was a Visiting Researcher at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain in 2008, and a Joint PhD Student at the University of Bristol, U.K from October 2008 to September 2009. He worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the ITER Organization (France) from 2011 to 2013. He has published more than 80 papers obtained more than 500 citations since 2010. His H-index is 13. He is serving as a Principle Investigator (PI) for one EU project (Marie Curie Fellowship), two national natural science foundation of China (NSFC) projects, one Royal Society-Newton Mobility Grant jointly supported by NSFC of China and Royal Society of UK, and several other research projects. His current research interests include adaptive control, neural networks, parameter estimation, nonlinear control and applications.

Dr John Steele

Dr John Steele is Business Partnerships Manager at the University of Bradford and has over 20 years’ experience in senior technical roles in the chemical, polymer and related industries. He has a Ph.D in organic chemistry, an MBA and is author of 10 published patents.

Professor Hu Shougen

Professor Hu Shougen (born in Sep.1959) is member of Chinese Communist Party and the current President of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology. He is professor, supervisor of PhD, expert enjoying the special government allowance and member of Shanghai municipal political consultative conference (CPPCC).

Participating in work in Sep. 1976, Hu Shougen served as director of rural working group in ji’an county Committee Organization Department of CPC Jiangxi province. From Feb. 1978 to Aug. 1987, he studied at Shanghai Jiao Tong University majoring in Ship and Ocean Engineering and won bachelor and masters and PhD degrees in engineering; From Aug. 1987 to May 2004, he worked at University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and successively acted as vice director of Department of fluid mechanics of University of Shanghai for Science and Technology (formerly Shanghai Institute of Mechanical Engineering), deputy dean and executive vice president in school of energy and power engineering, director of academic affairs office, vice president of USST. From May 2004 to Jan. 2013, he held the post of president of Shanghai Second Polytechnic University.

From Feb. 1991 to Oct. 1992, Hu Shougen was a guest researcher at Mechanical engineering research institute of National Research Council of Canada，Ottawa. In 1994, he was promoted to professor and get doctoral tutor qualification in 1995. He was engaged in teaching and scientific research work in fluid mechanics, fluid machinery and fluid power engineering and made significant contributions in the fields of Ship propeller modification design and calculation, Polymer drag reduction and jet cutting, cavitating water jets, underwater high pressure water jet, and pipeage.

He was successively awarded “Shanghai New Expedition Shock Worker” “The National Outstanding Mechanical Teachers” “The Cross Century Academic Leader of the Original Mechanical Department” “National Key Talents Project on the First and Second Level Candidate”.

Dr Yanguang Shan

Dr Yanguang Shan is the Vice Director of the Centre for Faculty Teaching Development. He works with university faculty on enhancing teaching and pedagogical development. He is also a professor with the School of Energy and Power Engineering at USST. Professor Shan received his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Toronto in 2004. From 2005 to 2006, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Center for Advanced Coating Technologies at the University of Toronto. His research interests include the study of transport phenomena in thermal spraying and material synthesis, the dynamics of the droplet trajectory and vaporization, and the drying of complex fluids.

Dr Peet Morris

Dr Morris is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Oxford. He is also a consultant to NOHAZ (Neurons on Hybrid AlgorithmZ, www.nohaz.co). NOHAZ is an R&D laboratory that applies human and machine intelligence to innovation, problem solving, and product development. Finally, when asked, he is a sporadic lecturer here in the University of Bradford’s Faculty of Engineering & Informatics.

Peet spends most of his time thinking about thinking. His interests are broadly: Deep Learning; Computational Linguistics; Computational Neuroscience; Experimental Psychology; plus Software Engineering – because in the end, it all needs to be built fit-for-purpose. Previously, he co-founded, built, and then sold, a successful software house in the UK, and prior to that he was a Senior Developer at Microsoft.

Dr William Mitchell

Dr William Mitchell joined the University of Bradford in September 2013 and has responsibility for the development of the university’s internationalisation strategy.

Prior to this he led on partnerships at the University of Warwick as Assistant Director in the International Office. As part of this strategy Warwick explored a core partnership approach – developing in-depth one-to-one partnerships, notably with Monash University.

In his previous role as Director of Education for the British Council in China, he was responsible for activity in schools, vocational education, higher education and scholarships. He also managed the Sino-UK HE collaboration programme between the Higher Education Funding Council for Higher Education (HEFCE) and the Chinese Ministry of Education covering leadership development, policy issues such as governance and employability and entrepreneurship, and quality and excellence in learning and teaching.

Before China he worked for British Council in the UK advising on trans-national education and distance learning to a range of countries including: Singapore, Cuba, Serbia, Trinidad & Tobago, the Palestinian Territories, Sri Lanka, and Romania.

William has also been a senior lecturer in Computing at Manchester Metropolitan University. Research included the use of virtual environments for education and participatory design and ethnographic approaches to system design. He carried out consultancy work on the role of e-learning in the UK’s National Health Service.

Professor David Alfred Mfinanga

Professor David Alfred Mfinanga is an Associate Professor in Transportation Engineering and is currently the Deputy Vice Chancellor responsible for administration, resources and students affairs at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania as from 5th December 2014.

He graduated with an Honours degrees in (Civil) Engineering in 1991 and obtained his Masters degree from Miyazaki University in 1995 and a PhD degree from Kyushu University in Japan in 1998. He has held various positions at the University of Dar es Salaam and he is still involved in the core academic functions as a normal staff member in the Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering.

Professor Mfinanga is committed to community service including involvement in several boards. He is recognized as a prolific African researcher in transport engineering and has published many papers in international journals. He has recently, together with other international co-authors, published a book titled “Paratransit in African Cities: Operations, Regulation and Reform” published by Earthscan. Professor Mfinanga is fluent in Kiswahili, English and Japanese (conversational).

Salim Mahmood

Salim Mahmood is presently the Deputy Director of Hindustan University, at Chennai-India. An Alumnus of the same university, he is heading the Marketing and Admissions department for the last 16 years. He has keen interest in the Educational sector and specialised in studies relating to the present Educational Policies of the Universities Grants Commission under the Ministry of Human Resources of the Government of India. He is familiar with all foundation requirements for new colleges under the liberalised scheme of the Govt Of India for Technical education in the unaided sector. This has given him a tremendous exposure to all aspects of functioning of a Professional Education institution in the Private sector. He has travelled to over 30 countries with active contacts in education sector.

He oversees Marketing, Counselling and the entire Admission process through a Team of Professionals based in Chennai. He also is in charge of establishing linkages with various Foreign Universities for conduct of Joint Courses, faculty and student exchanges for the Group to further its Strategic interests.

Professor Brian MacCraith

Professor MacCraith holds a Personal Chair in Physics at DCU. He was founding Director of both the National Centre for Sensor Research (NCSR) and the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) at DCU. He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He was appointed President of DCU in July 2010 and will hold this position for 10 years. As President, he has advanced DCU’s mission as a research-intensive, globally-engaged University of Enterprise that emphasises innovation in teaching, learning and research.

During his time as President, DCU has been ranked among the world’s leading young universities and is included both in the QS Top 50 under 50 and the THE 100 under 50.

Professor MacCraith has a strong commitment to student entrepreneurship (both social and commercial) and recently Chaired the National Review of STEM Education in Ireland for the Irish Government.