IEEE-iSES

Keynote Speaker

Speaker Biography

Recently honoured with the highest civilian award for Indians living abroad, by the President, Government of India, the Pravasi Bhartiya Samman, and Bharat Gaurav at the British Parliament, Dr. Archana Sharma is a Principal Staff Scientist at the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland active in the field since 1989 in high energy physics. A Ph.D. from Delhi University in 1989, a D.Sc. from the University of Geneva in 1996, and an MBA from International University in Geneva Archana has worked at CERN experiments on R&D and commissioning of large-scale radiation detectors. She is the founder and Project Manager of CMS GEM Collaboration since 2008, bringing a new technology GEM (Gas Electron Multiplier) - for exploiting one of the most sensitive detectors with the highest discovery potential. The GEM project spanned about 40 institutions in 17 countries yielding over 75 PhDs under her leadership, many from India and including technology transfers with Indian industries. Archana also serves as Senior Advisor heading Relations with International Organisations at CERN, in support of CERN's objective of integrating and highlighting fundamental research towards Science Diplomacy for Sustained Development Goals. Dr. Sharma is Head of the Engagement Office for the ‘Compact Muon Solenoid’ Experiment at CERN which connects her with a collaboration spanning 57 countries and about 250 institutions. She has collaborated with events at the ILO Geneva and World Communication Forum Davos as spokesperson for diversity, excellence in scientific communication. She is well known for her relentless efforts in mentoring hundreds of young students particularly girls in STEM, via her NGO based in New Delhi. Archana is also a patent owner of a family of gas detectors, an author of over 1600 publications and 4 popular science books.

Panel Discussion on “Opportunities for Women in STEM”

Meet our Distinguished Panelists!

Panelist Biography

Rachna Malik is the Vice President and Global Head of TCS ADD™ Platform. TCS ADD™ Platform offers innovative technology solutions to pharma companies and research institutes for digitization of clinical trials. The platform, powered by Artificial Intelligence, accelerates clinical R&D value chain and makes clinical trials more agile and safe. TCS ADD TM Platform is the winner of European Innovation Award 2019, India Pharma Award 2019, 2022 & 2023 and 'Best Technical Implementation for AI' award at the 5th Global Annual Achievement Awards for Artificial Intelligence. Rachna has led the TCS ADD™ business unit from start to its current state where it is a recognized globally for AI led transformations, futuristics offerings and excellent customer experience.

Rachna has rich experience in IT industry spanning more than 30 years. During this time, she has held multiple leadership roles covering delivery, program management, operations, sales and strategy formulation, talent development, product incubation and development, besides having independent charge of business units within TCS. She has worked with various global brands to drive transformations enabled by digital technologies to deliver successful business benefits. Rachna is a distinguished alumnus of BITS, Pilani and has completed the executive leadership program from Ross Business School, University of Michigan. She is a yoga enthusiast, a foodie and a fan of retro Bollywood music. She lives in Delhi with her husband, 2 daughters and 2 dogs.

Panelist Biography

Director and member Secretary, Atal Incubation Centre and Technical Business Incubator of NSUT. Coordinator NBA, NAAC, AISHE, IIC, UGC, and AIU of NSUT. Instrumental in getting NBA accreditation and UGC-2f and 12B status and ARIIA 3rd and 5th rank in India in 2022- 21 to the University. First Woman Chair-Elect 2023, IEEE India Council.

Panelist Biography

Mr. R. Madhan has taken over the position to lead the bilateral Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC) as its Director on 29th December 2020 and has been actively catalyzing Indo-German Science & Technology partnerships.

Mr. Madhan during his tenure as Director, IGSTC had expanded the programme portfolio of IGSTC for providing opportunities to a large community including early career, mid-career and cross gender representation.

He had initiated major programmes to enhance involvement of Indo-German Scientific communities and to foster strategic partnerships. The new programmes initiated were IGSTC Industrial Fellowship (IF) for industrial exposure in Germany for young Indian researchers, Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research (WISER) to facilitate lateral entry for women in STEM, Paired Early Career Fellowship in Applied Research (PECFAR) for creating avenues for two-way exchange of young research in pairs and Small Immediate Need Grants (SING) for providing quick assistance to kick off ad-hoc opportunities with fast track processing.

He also added an important aspect as per the IGSTC’s mandate to strengthen public-private partnerships by developing academia-industry connect programmes to foster industrial research, innovation and techno-entrepreneurship and forged tie-ups with industries like BASF and TATA Steel.

He had earlier been associated with development of marine instrumentation and autonomous underwater technology for oceanographic research at CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa from 1991 to 2020. As a Chief Scientist and Head of the Marine Instrumentation Department at CSIR-NIO, he has contributed in the development of several marine robots including Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)-MAYA, remotely operated surface vehicles and autonomous vertical profilers (AVP). He played a key role in transferring AUV and AVP technology know-how to industry and in commercialization of the same. He had also played a major role in capacity building and popularizing marine robotics in India.

Mr. Madhan had also served as the Science Counselor at the Embassy of India, Berlin, Germany for three years during which he ably facilitated, coordinated and contributed in enhancing bilateral cooperation between India and Germany. He played a major role in connecting scientists and academicians of India & Germany on several areas including clean energy, next generation batteries, high energy physics, marine robotics, biotechnology, molecular biology, space research, climate research, education and sustainable studies. He contributed significantly in connecting German institutions (including Fraunhofer, Leibniz, Helmholtz, Max Planck Institutes, TU9, Excellence Initiative Universities) with Indian counterparts (including CSIR, DBT, DST, MoES, ICAR, IISc, IIT).

His experience with international partners includes work with the Institute for System and Robotics (ISR), Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Lisbon through the Indo-Portuguese bilateral project on marine technologies and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, California through the POGO-SCOR fellowship.

He is the recipient of the Meritorious Invention Award from the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), Ministry of S & T, New Delhi for "Autonomous Vertical Profiler (AVP)" for the year 2010. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India.

His research career following the Electrical & Electronics Engineering degree from REC, Calicut and Master’s degree in Power & Energy systems from REC, Surathkal has resulted in several publications in journals and conferences in addition to international patents.