By OUR STAFF REPORTER
Dehradun, 27 Aug: A ‘Research Development Programme (RDP)’ for the faculty on ‘Application of Emerging Methodologies Vital for Future of Engineering Research’ was organised by UPES at its Bidholi campus. The daylong event was organised by the ‘Department of Health, Safety & Environment and Civil Engineering’ of the University and supported by ‘UPES Research & Development’. Dr Prabhat Kumar, Vice President, Data Science at Foote Cone and Belding (FCB), Chicago, and Dr Harshingar Patel, Associate Professor, HSE & Civil Engineering Department, UPES, were the Guest Speakers at the event.
Briefing the media, Arun Dhand, Sr Director, Public Affairs, shared that the knowledge of the faculty and their continual research learning to keep themselves abreast with the current trends formed the foundation of the academic strength of a University. “This programme was conducted to benefit the UPES School of Engineering Faculty and PhD Scholars. As many as 27 Faculty members and PhD Scholars from the UPES School of Engineering participated,” he disclosed.
Welcoming the speakers and participants, Dr Nihal Anwar Siddiqui, Professor & Head, HSE & Civil Engineering, stated that it had become imperative to integrate the evolving research methodologies owing to the inter-disciplinary developments and their impacts on engineering research. Sharing his insights on the importance of continuous learning for a faculty member, Dr Siddiqui encouraged the participants to upgrade their research efforts on a routine basis so that they were at par with those adopted by the top academic institutions.
Guest Speaker from UPES Dr Harshingar Patel conducted a session on “Introduction to Predictive Models, Optimisation Techniques and decision-making methods in Engineering”. Her second session was on “Data Processing Techniques for Large Scale Data Analysis, Data Analytics and Data Imputation”. Dr Patel has worked with the US Federal & State Governments and the People’s Republic of China on several collaborative Infrastructure Management Projects, Strategic Planning and Development of City Transportation System Projects. Her expertise lies in large-scale data analysis, simulation, mathematical modelling and econometric modelling for Highway Transportation Systems and Infrastructure Portfolio Management.
Conducting the post-lunch sessions, the Guest Speaker from FCB, the third-oldest advertising agency in the US, Dr Prabhat Kumar introduced participants to the concepts of Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Neural Network and Machine Learning along with their applications in engineering research. Dr Prabhat Kumar holds a B. Tech (Electrical Engineering) degree from IIT Kanpur and a Doctorate in ‘Computer Engineering’ from Northwestern University, Chicago. This interactive session was followed by a real-life case study discussion. The second session was an activity-based one dividing the participants into groups and providing them with real-world dataset to formulate research methodology using the information provided to them during the session. The groups then presented their ideas and discussed them thoroughly.
