Keynote Speakers
(in alphabetical order)
Prof. Dr. Amy Chapman
Columbia University New York, USA and Arizona State University, USA
Spirituality Mind Body Groups:
Nurturing Spirituality in Adolescents and Emerging Adults for Mental Health and Wellness
Research has identified spirituality as an innate human capacity (Kendler et al.,
1997; Koenig et al., 2008; Button et al., 2011). While we each are born spiritual beings, for
that capacity to fully develop, our innate spirituality must be supported through intentional
interactions with others. Research has shown that personal spirituality is associated with
increased quality of life and well-being and mitigates the risk for psychiatric and behavioral
health conditions among adults (Gerson, 2018; Nadal et al., 2018; Yonker et al., 2012; Yotter
& Swank, 2017). Beyond being a natural part of human development, engaging our natural
spirituality provides neuroprotective benefits: students who are spiritual had a 60%
decrease in their risk for addiction, had an 80% decrease in major depression, and a 70%
decreased risk for dangerous risk-taking (e.g. driving fast, thrill seeking, physical
endangerment), (Barkin et al., 2015; Miller et al., 2000; Miller et al., 1997; Miller & Gur,
2002). Having a strong spirituality has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of suicidal
behavior (Hall et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2015). Spirituality has been identified as a buffer
between trauma exposure and PTSD symptoms among young adults (Fenzel & Richardson,
2022; Sheynin, et al., 2020; Vieselmeyer, et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2020).
It has become increasingly important for the spiritual lives of adolescents and young
adults to be nurtured, both for holistic development and to support mental health. A
growing body of research exists on the utility of spiritually integrated mind-body wellness
interventions among multiple populations, including active military members, Veterans,
cancer patients, athletes, college students, and medical and graduate students (Bormann
et al., 2008; Brown et al., 2020; Elkins et al., 2010; Greeson et al., 2015; Hawks et al., 1995;
Saunders et al., 2007; Scalora et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2021). Meta-analytic reviews have
shown significant health benefits of targeted prevention approaches that integrate
spirituality into mind-body practices (e.g., mindfulness and meditation) (Oman et al., 2008;
Scalora et al., 2022). This talk will discuss an integrated spiritual-mind-body wellness
intervention employed with late adolescents and emerging adults and initial research
around its efficacy.
Prof. Dr. Andrew Davies
Dept. of Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Although my interests are varied, I am fundamentally a biblical scholar and literary critic who works on the reception and impact of the Bible, particularly in the contexts of its influence on society, its handling by Pentecostals and Evangelicals globally and its interpretation in music and the arts. My PhD, in the field of biblical ethics, provoked my interest in the role of the Bible as a resource for moral thinking and led me to a lifelong fascination in why people think religion and sacred texts are so important to them in making lifestyle choices and how faith commitments impact our interactions with and contributions to society and the public and political spheres.
Recently this has resulted in many opportunities to reflect on the distinctive contribution that faith brings to leadership both in organisations and in civic life. I led the UK government’s pilot project for the professional development of religious leaders from 2019-20 and continue to work with UK government departments including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to promote the understanding of religion in policy-related contexts. At the same time I have advised and supported a variety of faith communities (particularly in the UK, India and Australia) on their political and social engagement strategies.
As an experienced academic project manager, I have led a variety of educational research and development projects for the University of Birmingham, including initiating what has since become our flagship interdisciplinary education activity, ‘The Birmingham Project’, where I was responsible for developing and sustaining the University’s relationships with major international businesses such as IBM, Jaguar LandRover, PwC and KPMG. I have managed funded research and engagement projects worth well over £2.5m, including a major, three-year AHRC-supported project, ‘Megachurches and Social Engagement in London’ (2013-16), which investigated the social engagement activities of some of the UK’s largest and most prominent churches.
I now combine leadership of the Cadbury Centre and public engagement work with directing the University of Birmingham’s Master of Public Administration in Faith-Based Leadership and MA in Religion, Politics and Society programmes, whilst continuing to write and teach on cultural-critical approaches to the Bible, contemporary forms of Christian worship and expression (most notably including Pentecostalism) and more recently on faith-based (especially but not only Evangelical Christian) engagement in the fields of culture and social and public policy.
TBA.
Prof. Dr. Pami Dua
Senior Professor and Former Director, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India
Dr. Pami Dua is Senior Professor of Economics and Former Director of the Delhi School of
Economics. She has served the University of Delhi also as Dean of Academic Activities and
Projects; Chairperson, Research Council and Dean Research of Humanities and Social Sciences.
She has been a member of the first Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India.
She has served as Co-Chair of the Task Force on Macroeconomics, Trade and Livelihoods under
Think20 (T20) / G20 India in 2023. She earlier served as the President of the Indian Econometric
Society and as the India Coordinator of the United Nations Global Forecasting Model – Project
LINK. She is a Senior Research Fellow with the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI) in
New York and has published widely in time series econometrics, forecasting,
macroeconometrics, monetary policy, business cycle analysis and sustainable development.
She earlier taught at the University of Connecticut, USA and Wayne State University, Michigan,
USA, and has also been affiliated with Yale University as well as Columbia University. She
holds a Masters and Doctorate in Economics from London School of Economics. She has been
conferred the highest honour of the University of Delhi, Nishtha Dhriti Satyam Samman, for
exemplary contribution to the development of the University and adherence to its ideals, values
and principles. She has also been awarded the National Systems Gold Medal by the Systems
Society of India for her outstanding contributions in the area of Economics and Social Sciences.
She has been honoured with the Distinguished Alumni Award (Honorary) from the Dayalbagh
Educational Institute.
TBA.
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang J. Duschl
Kiel University, Institute for Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics, Department of Astrophysics, Germany.
Wolfgang Duschl is a full Professor for Astrophysics at the Christiana Albertina University (CAU) at Kiel, Germany (since 2006). He is also the Chairman of the Academic Senate of CAU, and the Chairman-elect of the Board of Directors of the international professional journal “Astronomy & Astrophysics”.
He received his Doctoral degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (Germany) with a thesis prepared at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (Garching, Germany). Other stations in his career were the Universities of Cambridge (UK), Heidelberg (Germany), and Arizona (Tucson, AZ, USA), and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn (Germany).
His main research interests are the evolution of super-massive black holes and the atmospheres of exoplanets.
TBA.
Prof. Dr. Rocco J. Gennaro
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Indiana, USA.
Rocco Gennaro received his Ph.D. in 1991 at Syracuse University. Dr. Gennaro’s primary research and teaching interests are in Philosophy of Mind/Cognitive Science (especially consciousness), Metaphysics, Early Modern History of Philosophy, and NeuroEthics. He has published eleven books (as either sole author or editor) and over sixty articles and book chapters in these areas. Two of his most recent books are Consciousness (Routledge, 2017) and Mind and Brain: A Dialogue on the Mind-Body Problem, 2nd edition (Hackett, 2020).
Title: “Buddhist Eliminativism”
Abstract: For various reasons, the “no-self” (anatta) doctrine is a
standard position in Indian and Buddhist philosophy. There is really no
enduring subject of phenomenal experience despite the frequent use of
linguistic indexical terms such as “I” and “me.” We might say then that
the tradition embraces a sort of “eliminativism” about the self. Yet,
Buddhists do seem to hold that there are conscious mental states which
are also self-aware in some way. Following the very recent work of Mark
Siderits (_Buddhist Physicalism_), I explore the even stronger claim
that Buddhism could or should also adopt a version of eliminativism
about conscious mental states. This is more commonly viewed as a
position called “eliminative materialism” whereby conscious mental
states don’t really exist or at least not as they are often described
(e.g. Churchland, Dennett, Metzinger). Keith Frankish labels this
position “illusionism”; that is, the view that there only _seems_ to be
phenomenal consciousness and/or there are no phenomenal properties at all. Can or should a Buddhist embrace illusionism? I’ll explore the
idea in this talk.
Prof. Dr. Anna Margaretha Horatschek
Kiel University (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel), Kiel, Germany
Anna M. Horatschek studied English Literature, Philosophy, and German Literature in Germany and USA. She received her B.A. from UC Berkeley, USA, and her PhD from Freiburg University (Germany) with a dissertation on the epistemological significance of self-reflexive language experiments in the novels of US-author Richard Brautigan. She habilitated with a monography on the epistemological, political, and ethical implications of identity and alterity constructs (nation, gender, ´race´) in novels by Joseph Conrad, E.M. Forster, and D.H. Lawrence. In 1998, she spent a year as Visiting Professor at the University of Maryland, USA. From 2000 to 2018, she held the chair as professor for English Literature at Kiel University, Germany. Since 2011 she has been a member, and since 2016 she is Vice President of the German Academy of Sciences and
Humanities in Hamburg. She has published widely on knowledge formation, consciousness studies, identity and alterity constructs, intermedial representation in English and American Literature, and on transcultural poetics and gender issues in Indian Literatures in English. Her recent books include Competing Knowledges – Wissen im Widerstreit, DeGruyter, 2020 (ed.), Identitäten im Prozess: Region, Nation, Staat, Individuum, DeGruyter, 2015 (ed. with A. Pistor-Hatam), and Navigating Cultural Spaces: Maritime Places, Rodopi, 2014 (ed. with Y. Rosenberg, D. Schäbler).
TBA.
Prof. Dr. Herbert Lang
BA Indian Music, University of Madras, India
In october 1979 Herbert Lang traveled to India. From 1980 to 1983 music-studies at the “Tamil Nadu Government College of Carnatic Music” in Madras/Chennai, Tamil Nadu. After finishing these studies he joined the University Madras/Chennai where he was a student from 1983 upto 1989. He received the grade “Bachelor of Arts / B.A. Indian Music” given through the University Madras/Chennai.
During this period he held a scholarship from the “German Academic Exchange Service”. Later he continued his mridangam/drum – studies under the supervision of mridangam-virtuoso
Padmashree Palghat R. Raghu. During this period he was recipient of a scholarship from the “Indian Council for Cultural Relations-ICCR”.
In 1994 returning to Germany Herbert Lang became an employee of the “Brotfabrik Frankfurt / MuK – GmbH.”, organising and presenting musicconcerts and festivalprograms.
Since 1997 working as independent musician and concerttour-promotor for indian musicians in Germany & Europe.
Organising concerttours and accompanying indian musicians like: Dr. L.Subramaniam, PadmaShri K.V.Narayanaswami, PadmaShri Palghat R. Raghu, Sri T.V.Gopalkrishnan, Sri Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Kadri Gopalnath, the violin-duo Mysore Brothers: Sri N.Nagaraj & Dr.
N.Manjunath, Lalgudi Krishnan & Vijayalakshmi, Ustad Amjad Ali Khan, Anoushka Shankar, Hariprasad Chaurasia and many other indian artists.
Summer 1999: collaboration with the “Kunstmuseum Bonn” on the occasion of bestowing the “Honorary Price for Film- and MediaMusic” on the indian sitarvirtuoso Pandit Ravi Shankar on
12. june 1999 in Bonn; organisation and presentation of the concert with Pandit Ravi Shankar on
24. july 1999 on the Museumscourt in Bonn.
30. sept. 2006: organising the opening event for the Sahitya Academy during the International Bookfair in Frankfurt in the presence of the Indian Ambassador to Germany, Mrs. Meera Shankar and the President of the Sahitya Academy, Prof Gopi Chand Narang. Honorary Guest of the evening was the indian poet Gulzar reading some of his poems.
Sept. 2006: ICCR and DIG/Indo-German Association present Mr. Lang with the Gisela Bonn Price for his outstanding contributions towards Indo-German relations especially in the field of cultural relations between the two countries.
January 2007: visiting India as guest of the ICCR. During a function at Azad Bhavan, New Delhi, Mr. Lang receives the plate of honor / Gisela Bonn Price from the President of the ICCR DR Karan Singh.
October 2007: organising the concert-event for radio Cologne/WDR at the Philharmonie Cologne. Indian musicians participating were Dhruba Gosh – Sarangi, Kala Ramnath – Violin and Pandit Jasraj – Vocal.
Dec. 2008 – Jan. 2009: concerttour in India for the Lakshminarayana Global Music Festival with the Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra and Dr. L. Subramaniam performing the compositions of Dr. Subramaniam for Orchestra and Indian Music Ensemble. Concerts in Hyderabad, Hampi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune and Trivandrum.
May 2009: organising and performing with Dr. L. Subramaniam at the prestigious Kronberg Violin Masterclasses & Concerts / A Tribute to Yehudi Menuhin.
Concerts with Dr. Subramaniam and the Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra at the Gewandhaus Concerthall in Leipzig and at the auditorium of the Hessische Rundfunk/Radio Frankfurt.
2010 – 2011: living in Mysore, Karnataka/India where he works as an associate professor at the Music-department of the University of Mysore. He researches and works on a manual to present the south-indian, carnatic rhythms in western notation to make them easier accessible for non-indian musicians. This project is supported and funded through a fellowship from the “Indian Council for Cultural Relations – ICCR”.
He is also active as a performing artist in Inda playing the kanjira and accompanying carnatic musicians like Dr. L.Subramaniam, the Mysore Brothers, Mysore Chandan Kumar; Kadri Gopalnath and many younger musicians during their concerts.
In 2012 Herbert Lang is elected to the National Board of the Indo – German Association / DIG where he is responsible for the cultural work of the Association, the close relations with the ICCR and organising the annual chaintour in cooperation with the ICCR.
In 2016 accompanying Dr.L.Subramaniam for 3 concerts commemorating the 100th birth- anniversary of Yehudi Menuhin at the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin, at the Yehudi Menuhin Festival, Gstaad and at the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brüssel
Since 2018 annual concert-tours in variuos european countries with the young carnatic flutist J.A. Jayant & ensemble
Numerous radio-recordings for different radiostations like Radio France Paris, WDR-Cologne, BR-Munich, SWR-Mainz, SWR-Baden Baden, HR-Frankfurt, Radio Multi-Kulti/RBB-Berlin.
Publication for the Musikhochschule Freiburg contributing to their compilation of essays on foreign musiccultures: Musik Anderer Kulturen.
Herbert Lang: Dem Klang zur Ehre – Tradition and Present Day of Classical Indian Music
published by Gustav Bosse Verlag, Kassel.
„Nadabrahma, Nadayoga, Nadopasana -SOUND as the contemplation of the Devine“
Prof. Dr. Yalda Mohsenzadeh
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada
Yalda is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science and a core member of the Brain and Mind Institute at Western University. She is also a faculty member with Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Previously, she was a postdoctoral associate in the Computer Science and A.I. Lab (CSAIL) and McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT. Before she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Vision Research at York University. Yalda received her PhD in statistical machine learning from Amirkabir University of Technology.
TBA.
Prof. Dr. Adrian Owen
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging, Dept. of Physiology and Pharmacology, Psychology, Western University, Western Ontario, Canada
Adrian M. Owen OBE, PhD is currently a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging in the Departments of Physiology & Pharmacology and Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He also directs the Azrieli program in Brain, Mind, and Consciousness funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) and is on the Executive Committee of the CFREF funded initiative BrainsCAN at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
Dr. Owen was previously the Assistant Director of the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit at Cambridge University and the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging at Western University. His research combines structural and functional neuroimaging with neuropsychological studies of brain-injured patients and has been published in many of the world’s leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet. Adrian Owen is best known for showing that functional neuroimaging can reveal conscious awareness in some patients who appear to be entirely vegetative and can even allow some of these individuals to communicate their thoughts and wishes to the outside world. These findings have attracted widespread media attention on TV, radio, in print and online and have been the subject of many TV and radio documentaries.
Dr. Owen has played multiple editorial roles, including 8 years as Deputy Editor of The European Journal of Neuroscience. He has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and a best-selling popular science book ‘Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death. Dr. Owen was recently awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Honors List, 2019, for services to scientific research.
Prof. Dr. Sukhdev Roy
Professor and Head, Dept. of Physics and Computer Science, Faculty of Science, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Dayalbagh, Agra, India
Professor Sukhdev Roy received the B.Sc. (Honors) degree in Physics from Delhi University in 1986, M.Sc. Physics with specialization in Electronics from DEI, in 1988, and Ph.D. from IIT Delhi in 1993. He joined the Dayalbagh Educational Institute in 1993, where he is at present the Head of the Department of Physics and Computer Science. He has been a Visiting Professor at many universities that include, Harvard (USA), Waterloo (Canada), Würzburg and Regensburg (Germany), Osaka and Hokkaido (Japan), City University of London and Queen Mary University of London (UK), TIFR, Mumbai and IISc. Bangalore (India). He has also been an Associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy (2011-2014) and is a Member of the Global Panel of MIT Technology Review.
“Controlling the Mind, Brain and Heart with Light and Sound: Eastern and Western Perspectives“
The Eastern perspective considers consciousness to be primary and the origin of all experience.
Controlling the mind through the brain and heart leads to the realization of the conscious self and
union with Supreme Consciousness. According to the Ra Dha Sva Aa Mi Faith or Sant Mat, the seat
of the spirit, i.e. consciousness is at the sixth ganglia in the brain, while the seat of the mind (Pindi
Mana) is at the fourth ganglia, i.e., at the solar plexus situated at the lower end of the sternum,
referred to as the Heart Chakra. The nerve-centers observable by us in them and other ganglia are
made up of physical constituents, while the associated force-centers are subtle and hold
communion with their respective subtle planes in the creation. The mind and the spirit-currents by
their joint action produce the physical frame and the six ganglia. The spirit current furnishes
energy, vitality, and subjective functions and goes through the mental plane to the senses and
then spreads to the entire body. A complete stoppage of the functions of the fourth or mind
ganglion results in a collapse of the physical frame and its subjective functions. Meditation is
necessary to control the mind and attain purer higher states of consciousness, for which it is
important to engender humility, faith, devotion and love (force of attraction) in one’s heart, to
draw the mind inwards and focus attention at higher nerve centres in the brain. External
devotional and internal meditational practices inherently use light (Tratak – to gaze) and sound
(mantra chanting and Surat-Shabda-Yoga), as divine sound and refulgence are intrinsic qualities of
consciousness, and sound manifests and sustains all forms in the creation.
The Western scientific approach on the other hand is rooted in materialism, focused primarily on
observed third-person experiences. It is engaged in studying the brain, heart and the bidirectional
brain-heart interactions to understand the neurobiology of consciousness. The heart is in
continuous communication with the brain and the whole body through multiple pathways,
namely, Neurological (through the autonomic nervous system), Biochemical (through hormones),
Biophysical (through pressure and sound waves), and Energetic (through electromagnetic field
interactions). In recent years, light and sound have been innovatively used to control the brain and
heart to investigate the neuronal mechanism for transmission and modulation of consciousness
with unprecedented spatio-temporal resolution. The emerging non-invasive Optogenetics,
Sonogenetics and Sono-Optogenetic technologies have revolutionized neuroscience and
cardiology for understanding consciousness. The talk would discuss our recent exciting research
results on efficient optogenetic and sono-optogenetic control of neurons and human ventricular
cardiomyocytes and its application in synaptic plasticity, vision restoration and optical pacing of
the human heart. An attempt would also be made to integrate Eastern and Western perspectives
to design new experiments for studying the psychophysiological dynamics involved in
homeostatic-allostatic control, cognitive functions and consciousness, using light and sound.
Prof. Joy Sen
Professor, Department of Architecture and Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India
Administrative Positions
1. Former Chairman, Center of EXCELLENCE for INDIAN KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS, IIT Kharagpur (2020 -23)
2. Former Chairperson, Museum of Science & Technology, IIT Kharagpur (2020 -22)
3. Former Head of the Department of Architecture and Regional Planning (2017-19)
4. Former Chairman, Ranbir and Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure and Design, IIT Kharagpur (2014 –
2017)
Currently:
a. Co-chairman, Academy of the Classical and Folk Arts, IIT Kharagpur (ongoing)
BRIEF ACADEMIC PROFILE
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Doctor of Philosophy (2006)
College of Design, Iowa State University,
Ames, Iowa, USA
Masters in Community and Regional Planning (1989)
(Best Thesis Award ISU 1989)
(PACE or Progress Academic Excellence Award 1988)
(Half-time Teaching Assistantship 1987-89)
UNDP Program, ISU, Ames, USA
Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
Exchange Program
School Education
Technology and Social Change (Minor in Development
Anthropology) (1989) [UNITED NATIONS – UNDP]
Bachelor of Architecture (Hons.)
(Institute Mansara Scholarship & Best UG Thesis Award)
(1984)
Rotary Exchange Award (1982) to Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Intern at BREGMAN & HAMMAN Don Mills, Ontario CA 1982
Awarded All India Gold Medal
Obtained the Highest All India Marks in Social Sciences
Group (92%) (1978) from AICSSE, CBSE, Government of India
2
CURRENT AWARDS & KEY ADMINISTRATIVE POSITIONS
– G. S. Sanyal All-round Faculty Excellence Award (2021) from IIT US Alumni Foundation, USA.
– QANSAS Distinguished Speaker Award (2019) from Quantum Group, run jointly by DEI-Agra, and allied
Universities in the USA.
– Advisory Committee Member, All India NEW PARLIAMENT Gallery Complex, New Delhi – nominated by
Hon’ble Minster of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2022 – 2024)
– Member, Advisory Committee Member, NCSM (National Council of Science Museum), Ministry of Culture
– nominated by Hon’ble Minster of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2022 – 2026)
– Board Member, Visva-Bharati University (Rural and Regional Planning Division), Government of India
(2023-2025)
– Visitor’s Nominee, Academic Selection Committee nominated for all NITs and IIESTs by Hon’ble Minster of
Education, Ministry of Culture, Government of India (2022 – 24) – as nominated by President of India.
MAJOR COLLABORATIONS (as PI)
– AYUSH – GCOE Project with The University of Tokyo, Japan and Tokyo Metropolitan University (2009;
2011)
– Research Collaborations – 15 Projects (The Science & Heritage Initiative), MHRD (2013 -19) and 15
projects: Future of Cities Initiative, MHRD (2013-19), GoI [As Principal Investigator of 2 Mega Projects,
with 15 sub projects in each, he headed THE SCIENCE & HERITAGE INITIATIVE (SandHI) and Future of
Cities, IIT Kharagpur (2013-19), Ministry of Education, Government of India]
– PROJECT VARANASI (2013-19): with GSAPP Columbia University NYC, USA (2017) and Georgia Institute of
Technology, Atlanta, USA (2018)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE (URBAN PLANNING & URBAN DESIGN) – INDUSTRIAL CONSULTANCY (2013 -2023)
Professional industrial experience (1988 – 98) = last 10 years
– Principal Consultant in 3 major R & R Planning consultancy projects with Ministry of Power, Ministry of
Coal, Damodar River Valley Corporation Government of India (Both Completed and ONGOING)
– Principal Designer in 4 architectural design projects with Ministry of Culture, Government of India; City
Town Hall Authority Government of West Bengal; Saint Xavier’s University Campus Kolkata
– International collaborations with
a) The University of Tokyo and Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan (2012; 2016)
b) Project Varanasi Urban Planning Heritage Workshop Columbia University GSSAP, New York City and
Georgia Tech University, Atlanta, USA (2015; 2019)
– City Heritage project jointly with British Council Division, India and Creative Council, Queens Mary
University of London, United Kingdom (2017-19) – awarded as a part of offerings that received UNESCO
intangible Heritage Tag
3
AUTHORSHIP (PLANNING & URBAN DESIGN/ BUILT ENVIRONMENT)
1. A System's Evaluation of Global History of Indian Architecture Paperback – 1 February 2016:
https://www.amazon.in/Systems-Evaluation-Global-History-Architecture/dp/8192473325 Publisher:
Copal Publishing, New Delhi
2. Sustainable Urban Planning Hardcover – 30 March 2012: https://www.amazon.in/Sustainable-Urban-
Planning-Joy-Sen/dp/8179933245 Publisher: TERI (The Energy Research Institute, India Habitat Center,
New Delhi)
3. 5 Narrative Indology based thriller Story Books for Children (in Bengali) by ANANDA Publishers Pvt. Ltd.,
India (2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, 2024).
PERSONAL WEBSITE
IIT website: http://www.iitkgp.ac.in/department/AR/faculty/ar-joysen
Nadabrahman – God is Sound
“Sonic Consciousness”: its religious, spiritual and metaphysical aspects as understood in indian culture and in particular as perceived, understood and presented in the classical indian music of today.
Invited Speakers
(in alphabetical order)
Prof. Dr. Dayal Pyari Srivastava
Associate Professor, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India
Dr. Dayal Pyari Srivastava is Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics and Computer Science, DEI. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Master’s degree in Electronics from Dayalbagh Educational Institute in 1985 and 1988 respectively. Subsequently, she obtained her Ph.D. on the topic “Graph Theoretic Quantum Field / System Modelling for Quantum Information / Computation Circuits and Algorithms” as a joint research scholar between DEI and IIT Delhi. She has been actively involved in physics education for over 20 years and has vast experience of science education.
She has published several papers in refereed international journals and co-authored a book entitled “Quantum Information Systems” published by McGraw Hill Education, particularly the R.K. Varshney Award of Systems Society of India for exceptional contributions to systems science, application, and technology. Her research interests include graph theoretic modelling modelling of quantum systems and consciousness studies.
Topic: Innovative Application Of Game Theory And Exploratory Measurement Of Spiritual Intelligence: A Brief Overview Of Research Work Of Students Supervised By Dr. Dayal Pyari Srivastava
TBA
Prof. Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir
Assistant Professor, Dayalbagh Educational Institute, India
Dr. Bani Dayal Dhir is Assistant Professor at the Department of English Studies, Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)Agra, India. Recipient of the prestigious Director’s medal in BA Hons.(English), MA (English) and M.Phil.(English )programmes, her primary research interests include Literature , Theory and Consciousness studies. Her research endeavours are highly interdisciplinary in nature. Some of her notable contributions include “Graph Theoretic Field Modelling for Multi- Dimensional Literary Systems” (M.Phil. dissertation), “A Study of Emergentism and High End Complexity in Complex Literary Systems” (Ph.D. thesis). In recognition of her contribution to research in Systems Theory and literature, the Systems Society of India (SSI) honoured her with the National Young Systems Scientist award in 2009 and conferred its prestigious Raj Kumar Varshney award in 2017. She has travelled widely and has presented papers at various international and national conferences and won several best paper awards. As the Joint coordinator of Centre for Consciousness Studies, DEI from 2011- 17, she organized ‘East –West Forum’ for integrating the Eastern and the Western perspectives of consciousness at the annual international conference “The Science of Consciousness” organized by the Centre for Consciousness Studies, University of Arizona, USA. She has to her credit several research publications and creative non-fiction and poems in national and international journals. As the coordinator of (iNFORMATIONcOMMUNICATION- nEUROcOGNITIVE-) Technologies Assisted Language Lab, (i-c-n-c-) TALL, DEI, she has developed a state of the art multilingual digital language laboratory cum research centre.
Toward True Liberation: An Anaylsis of Huzur Sahabji Maharaj’s Play Swarajya
Mrs. Prem Pyari Dayal
Prem Vidyalaya Girls' Intermediate College, Agra India
Mrs. Prem Pyari Dayal received the B.A. degree from University of Delhi in 1980, the M.A degree in Psychology and the B.Ed. degree from the Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra, in 1982 and 1984, respectively. Since 2009, she has been an honorary Lecturer in DEI Prem Vidyalaya Girls Intermediate College, Dayalbagh, Agra, India. Her research interest is in the science of consciousness.
TBA
Young Researchers
(in alphabetical order)
Dr. Aarat Kalra
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University, USA
Dr Aarat Kalra is working to understand the relevance of quantum effects in biological systems. His experience has been strongly multidisciplinary, ranging from performing in vitro fluorescence assays to measuring the pH surrounding biological nanowires (microtubules). His Ph.D. work involved determining the bioelectrical potential of the cytoskeleton using techniques from both physics (photoluminescence spectroscopy and impedance measurements) and biology (fluorescence-microscopy based methods). He has extensive experience in dealing with microtubules, microtubule associated proteins and fluorophores, and with associated drugs. He enjoys doing experiments in the lab, anything on the interface of biology and physical chemistry, MATLAB coding and writing papers.
TBA.
Dr. Ami Kumar
Columbia University, Department of Neurology, Irving Medical Center, New York, USA.
Ami Kumar is a postdoctoral scientist at the department of Neurology, Columbia University, New York, USA. Ami Kumar completed her Ph.D. from Kiel University, Germany and M.Sc. from Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Agra in the field of Neurosciences.
Her current research involves developing new therapeutic pipelines for neuromodulation in movement disorders such as ataxia and tremor, using non invasive brain stimulation techniques.
TBA.
Dr. Apurva Ratan Murty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGovern Institute for Brain Research
Apurva Ratan Murty is currently a Research Scientist at the Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, McGovern Institute of Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Nancy Kanwisher and Jim DiCarlo.
He is broadly interested in understanding the neural basis of visual object recognition in humans and non-human primates. He obtained his PhD from the Centre for Neuroscience, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore – India, where he was advised by S.P. Arun. Over the course of his research at IISc, he investigated the dynamics of invariant object representations in macaques. In 2021 he received two awards –the NIH K99/R00 ‘Pathway to Independence’ from National Eye Institute, and the Young Systems Scientist Award – National Systems Society of India. His latest publication is: Ratan Murty, N.A., Bashivan, P., Abate, A., DiCarlo, J., Kanwisher, N. (2021). Computational models of category-selective brain regions enable high-throughput tests of selectivity. Nature Communications 2021, 12:5540. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25409-6
TBA.
Dr. Shiroman Prakash
Dayalbagh Educational Institute, Department of Physics and Computer Science, Assistant Professor, Agra, India
Shiroman Prakash completed his M.Sc. in Physics from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, and his Ph.D. in Physics from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, in theoretical physics.
His research interests include string theory, quantum field theory and quantum information/computation.
TBA.