Analytics India Magazine has compiled a list of the top 10 most prominent analytics and data science academicians in India for the year 2019. In this annual list, we bring the academicians who have made a difference in the young analytics and data science professionals by offering exceptional guidance, delivering insightful sessions and out-of-the-box teaching methodologies to equip them with the concepts. The faculties including in the list have PhD degrees in analytics, data science and artificial intelligence domains.
The list is in alphabetical order.
Read our last year’s list here
1| Dr Abhinanda Sarkar
Dr Sarkar is the Academic Director at Great Learning for Data Science and Machine Learning Programs. He has a PhD in Statistics from Stanford University. He has taught mathematics at MIT and has also led industry roles, including 10 years of an illustrious career at GE Technology Centre. Dr Sarkar has publications, patents and technical leadership in areas such as experimental physics, computer vision, text mining, wireless networks, e-commerce, credit risk, and more.
Research interests: Statistics and its sub-domains
Teaching Experience: 28 years
PhD: Stanford University in Statistics
Key Achievements as a Data Science Academician: Taught at some of the most renowned institutions such as Stanford, MIT, IIM-B, ISI, IISc. He has been instrumental in designing and conducting numerous corporate training sessions for technology and business professionals. He has been the recipient of awards such as IBM Invention Achievement Awards, Radhakrishan Mentor Award from GE India, Discovery Award (NESTA, UK) and more.
2| Dr Chandrashekhar Ramanathan
He is a faculty member at IIIT-B since 2007, currently serving as the professor and dean (academics) at IIIT-B and upGrad. With a primary focus on software engineering, application development and database, he also has over 10 years of work experience in extensive application software development, semi-structured databases in large MNCs. He is one of the primary instructors in the PG Diploma in data science being offered jointly by IIIT-B and upGrad.
Research Interest: Data sciences, software architecture and technology for education, semi-structured databases, software engineering, enterprise content management and knowledge management
Teaching Experience: Over 10 years
Industry Experience: Over 10 years
PhD: Mississippi State University, in Computer Science
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He has contributed to the design of large online diploma and certification programmes in data science. He is a member of government panels and task groups for the promotion of data science education. He has supervised student research leading to the award of Doctorate degrees and has many best paper awards and recognition.
3| Dr D Pradeep Kumar
He is a senior data scientist and analytics trainer with a strong experience in R&D and training. With a keen interest in machine learning, data mining, and other areas, he has over a decade of experience in academia. He has spent his career as an academician at engineering college for over 3 years and as analytics trainer for more than 7 years. He is currently an analytics trainer with Imarticus Learning.
Research Interests: Time series forecasting, Machine learning, Deep Learning and NLP
Teaching Experience: 10 years
PhD: University of Hyderabad and IDRBT in CS
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He proposed seven novel soft computing hybrids for time series prediction which has been carried in reputed journals and international conference proceedings.
4| Dr J.B Simha
Dr Simha has a strong industry and academic experience in his over a decade long career. He has worked as an analytics consultant for firms such as Siemens Information Systems apart from holding positions like research assistant and CTO. He is currently the CTO and director of analytics at Abiba Systems. He has more than 50 papers published in national and international journals. Dr Simha has strong technical skills in artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, social media analytics, big data and more. He is currently the Chief mentor, Analytics, REVA Academy for Corporate Excellence at REVA University
Research Interest: Machine learning, Deep learning, Soft Computing, Data Science, Visual Analytics
Teaching Experience: 10 years
Industry Experience: 20 years
PhD: Bangalore University in Data mining
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He has produced and supervised four PhDs. He has a strong focus on bridging the teaching gap through research, consulting and training. He also has five best paper awards and three patents pending on his name.
5| Dr Manish Gangwar
Dr Gangwar is a tenured faculty in the marketing area at the Indian School of Business. He is currently the executive director of Applied Statistics and Computing Lab (ASC Lab) and business analytics programme at ISB. With a PhD in Management Science, his research interest lies in exploring marketing issues using quantitative models. He has developed a theory for optimal price promotion for frequently purchased goods and optimal nonlinear tariffs for subscription models.
Research Interests: Pricing analytics, Customer analytics, New Product Development, Retail analytics, and Celebrity advertising
Teaching Experience: Over 10 years
PhD: The University of Texas at Dallas in Management Science
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He is a well-respected researcher in the area of quantitative marketing and has established 12 papers in top journals worldwide. He has also been called for reviewing papers submitted to various top journals.
6| Dr P Sridhar
Dr Sridhar is a prominent faculty member and has been instrumental in the educational pursuits of more than 3000 students, helping them in their educational endeavours in some of the top universities in the world. He has over two decades of experience ranging from applications development to being a scientist for the Defence Metallurgical Research Laboratory, India. He has over 34 publications and has received three honours and awards for his excellence in the field of data science. He is the co-founder, executive VP – academics and mentor at INSOFE.
Research Interest: Statistics, Statistical Modeling, Data Visualizations, Ethical IP and Legal Issues for Data Scientists, Machine Learning, Decision Trees and Association Rules
Teaching Experience: 20 years
PhD: The University of Texas at El Paso in Materials Sciences and Engineering
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: Six Sigma Black Belt trained, Worldwide Lifetime Achievement (2017), Who’s Who in the World (2014, 2016), Member, Editorial Advisory Board: Handbook of Materials Structures, Properties, Processing and Performance by Dr Lawrence E Murr, Trained more than 150 Corporates.
7| Dr P.K. Viswanathan
With rich and varied experience across academia, research, industry, training, and consulting, Dr PKV, currently teaches MBA students subjects such as business statistics, operations research, business analytics, predictive analytics, and more at Great Lakes Institute of Management. He has more than 15 years of industry experience where he has held senior management positions in Ballarpur Industries and JK Industries.
Research interests: Currently, delving deep into Scoring Models for Analytics Decisions, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Analytics
Teaching Experience: Over 20 years
PhD: Madras University in Operations Research
Key Achievements as a Data Science Academician: He has been one of the best faculties at Great Lakes based on teaching feedback. In consulting assignments, he has developed and implemented analytical models successfully for business solutions. He has authored four books till date and has published research articles in reputed national and international journals.
8| Dr Prithwis Mukerjee
Dr Mukherjee is an engineer by education, a teacher by profession, a programmer by passion and an imaginer by intention. He loves to live at the creative edge where technology opens up new opportunities for doing business. He has a strong industry and academic experience where he has worked with companies such as Tata Steel, Tata IBM, PWC, and others. As an extension of his intense involvement with in-house training programs he switched careers and entered academia. After a four year stint as a tenured Professor and Member of the Senate at IIT, Kharagpur, India, he is now the Director at Praxis Business School, Calcutta
Research Interests: Application of Artificial Intelligence in Business and Social problems
Teaching Experience: 11 years
PhD: University of Texas at Dallas, in Management Science
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He has designed curriculum for full-time PGP in Data Science for Praxis. He is a part of the team that designed weekend, full-time program in Cyber Security. He has authored a book titled Chronotantra which is an original science-fiction novel about a technocratic society managed by AI.
9| Dr Sakshi Babbar
Dr Babbar has a rich experience of working in both industry and academics, having worked with companies such as Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing on interesting research problems. On the academics front, she has worked with reputed universities as a senior faculty and has guided PhD, Masters and Undergraduate students in the area of machine learning. She is an active researcher and has written several conference and journal papers of repute. She has a doctorate from the University of Sydney, Australia in the area of machine learning and data mining. She is currently the AVP, Machine Learning and AI at Careers of Tomorrow, Amity University Online.
Research Interest: Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Probabilistic Graphical Models
Teaching Experience: 9 years
PhD: The University of Sydney in Data Mining
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: Decent research outputs in the area of medical and environmental sciences.
10| Dr Santanu Sinha
With over 12 years of experience in designing and developing analytics solutions for complex business problems, he brings a strong blend of industry and academia along with business consulting. Dr Sinha is a lead data scientist at HPE and serves as visiting faculty and research advisor to AnalytixLabs, IIT Kharagpur, and SP Jain Institute of Management. He has been associated with AnalytixLabs since 2014 and is a key partner in curating advanced analytics courses in Optimisation, ML and Applied AI.
Research Interest: Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (Machine Learning & Deep Learning), Game-Theory, Evolutionary Computations, Simulation, and Optimization
Teaching Experience: 7 years
Industry Experience: Over 12 Years
PhD: Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, IIT Kharagpur in Supply Chain Management
Key Achievements As A Data Science Academician: He has been a key partner in curating advanced analytics course at AnalytixLabs. He has co-authored 20+ research papers and book chapters published in reputed international journals and conference proceedings.
