Prof. Raghuram Bharadwaj, Assistant Professor, IIIT Bangalore
Being in an academic atmosphere feels like home for Prof Raghuram Bharadwaj. Teaching has been his passion ever since his undergraduate days. Only to have industry exposure he took up as a senior data scientist at Myntra Design Ltd. His expertise is in the area of Reinforcement Learning which is a part of Deep Learning and Machine Learning.
Prof Raghuram has a clear picture of his research focus which explain ability in Deep Learning. He says, “We know Deep Learning is working well and people are building products using that technology. However, we need to understand how and why it is working. This eventually will help us to elucidate the decision-making process.”
The application of algorithms in AI models is another area of interest for him. He aims to do research on how to build AI models in healthcare and the power grid and to bring positive change in those areas.
Knowing about the evolution of the human brain fascinates Prof. Raghuram. He has read books such Into the Wild by Jon Krakaue. Currently, he is reading The Selfish Gene by the ethologist Richard Dawkins.
Prof Raghuram is from Ananthapur, Andhra Pradesh, and received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, in 2022.
For more details: https://www.iiitb.ac.in/faculty/raghuram-bharadwaj
Prof. Kurian Polachan, Assistant Professor, IIIT Bangalore
After a few years of stint in industry, Prof. Kurian Polachan realized that there is more freedom in academic setup rather than in industry. “In an institute like IIIT Bangalore, we get encouragement and freedom to work on academics as well as research. Also, we can impart knowledge to a good set of students that we may not get in an industry framework,” says Prof. Kurian. His teaching area in the institute would be Embedded Systems.
His ambition here is to set up a research center that will focus on touch sense technology, time-sensitive networking, biomedical wearable designs and human body communication.
If not earlier, post-pandemic, the world now is in much need of contactless technology. Touch sense technology will drive the future and companies are rushing to develop this innovation. Wearable technology in healthcare refers to devices that patients attach to their bodies to collect health and fitness data, which they provide to doctors in assessing their health condition. Examples include fitness trackers, blood pressure monitors, and biosensors.
“In India, we do not have enough expertise in building electronic products nor enough faculty members working on creating electronic products. With our knowledge we need to train students and build cutting-edge electronic products,” he adds.
He finds IIITB as a professionally managed institute and is happy to work in such a clean and tidy atmosphere.
Prof. Kurian is from Kerala and he has his received Ph.D. in 2021 from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).
For more details: https://www.iiitb.ac.in/faculty/kurian-polachan
