On 10 August in Delhi, India, 14 graduates of The University of Queensland (UQ) and Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (UQ-IITD) were awarded their PhDs during a Convocation ceremony that honoured their commitment, research achievements and bright futures. They comprise the largest graduating cohort to date in a program that is increasingly popular, with 100+ PhD candidates now enrolled.
Most of the August graduands have already secured employment in their chosen fields. Dr Arnab Bhattacharjee has joined the ranks of UQ staff, while Dr Neha Singh will apply her research to improving air quality in India.
Dr Bhattacharjee, welcomed to UQ as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Power, Energy and Control group at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, is thrilled to test the toolkit he developed during his doctoral studies.
"My PhD advisor, Professor Tapan Saha, is my current manager, and I am working in a field that is very close to my heart, using AI and data-driven technology to design better energy infrastructure and increase energy sustainability.
UQ is at the centre of this work as it aims to develop technological solutions for making this campus more energy efficient, renewable energy powered and resilient", Dr Bhattacharjee said.
For Dr Neha Singh, now working as Principal Project Scientist on a project funded by the Clean Air Fund at IIT Delhi, her focus on the impacts of air pollution and climate change on health, also draws on the diverse skill set she learnt during her dual degree program.
"This role allows me to apply the advanced knowledge and skills I gained during my PhD to real-world challenges, particularly in the intersection of environmental science and public health.
Looking ahead, I am eager to continue my journey in academia and research", she said.
"Travelling between India and Australia positively impacted my productivity. The new culture, work environments, and scenic beauty of Australia refreshed my mind, boosting my creativity and efficiency. Overall, the joint supervision and international collaboration have been crucial in shaping my research and personal growth."
UQ-IITD Research Academy offers mobility opportunities for researchers and their supervisors, with knowledge, expertise, ideas, and innovation flowing between Australia and India through this program since 2018. For researchers, it has often unexpected benefits.
"During my PhD, I often used the concept of adversarial training where a machine learning model is trained with a diverse, often adversarial, set of data to make it robust to uncertainties and unknown variations. This is similar to how one’s value system becomes robust when opened up to diverse and often contradicting views, experiences and opinions. And that is what I believe was the most fundamental contribution of this program to my life – rendering me with a robust value system", according to Dr Bhattacharjee.
Candidates access world-class facilities and resources, with dual supervision by academics from both universities. Benefits include global expertise, living and studying in a different culture, and employment opportunities that can extend the impacts of their research, like those achieved by this year’s graduates.
At the Pre-Convocation Tea Party in Delhi, UQ-IITD Research Academy Professor Vignesh urged graduates to showcase their hard-earned PhDs with pride in their lives.
‘The Academy's PhD joint PhD program is one of the most successful on the campus’, said Professor Narayanan Kurur, IITD Dean Academics.
UQ’s Graduate School Dean Professor Virginia Slaughter travelled to Delhi to celebrate this milestone.
"Completing this joint PhD not only demonstrates world-class research capability, but also flexibility of thinking and motivation to work across different education systems, different research environments, different cultures, and different locations. Attainment of the joint PhD truly showcases our graduands’ research leadership", said Professor Slaughter.
UQ Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global Partnerships) Mr Brett Lovegrove stated that the globe is the beneficiary of the research undertaken.
"The accomplishments of these graduands are significant and diverse, and emphasise the importance of global collaboration to solve global challenges. The interdisciplinary research undertaken by the UQ-IITD Research Academy will create positive change and benefit society well beyond our institutions in Australia and India", said Mr Lovegrove.
Congratulations to the graduates of UQ-IITD Academy of Research joint PhD program:
- Dr Madhumita Ramakrishna
- Dr Sushmita Ghosh
- Dr Deepti Mishra
- Dr Mayuri Kashyap
- Dr Simran Agarwal
- Dr Neha Singh
- Dr Urbi Kundu
- Dr Arnab Bhattacharjee
- Dr Akshay Satishkumar Baheti
- Dr Bhamidipati Venkata Suryakiran
- Dr Sadaf Aiman Khan
- Dr Aloka Kumar Sahu
- Dr Marut Jain
- Dr Manoj Kumar Sharma
The Indian Institute of Technology will be hosting the UQ-IITD Research Academy Annual Symposium in Delhi this year.
This year's symposium will focus on building relationships with industry partners, creating scope for future collaborations, and exploring external research funding opportunities for innovative, goal-directed, and impactful transnational projects.
