Prof. Vandana Swami is an accomplished academician with an interdisciplinary orientation spanning Sociology, Political Science, and Development Studies. Her research is grounded in a historically informed sociological inquiry into the formation of modern India, with a sustained engagement with questions of power, colonialism, and social transformation.
She completed her undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Political Science at Hindu College, University of Delhi, and holds a PhD in Sociology from the State University of New York, USA. Her doctoral work critically examined colonial structures and their enduring societal impacts, reflecting a consistent scholarly engagement with themes such as capitalism,postcolonial transformations, and liberalisation.
Her doctoral research specifically analysed the railway network in India as a key instrument of colonial expansion, demonstrating how infrastructural systems enabled not only mobility but also the reconfiguration of economic flows—particularly in relation to cotton export and broader processes of economic restructuring under colonial rule.
Her research and intellectual interests broadly encompass the study of India’s socio-political transformations, the dynamics of colonial and postcolonial development, and the intersections of economy, infrastructure, and power.
As an educator, she places a strong emphasis on critical thinking, advocating close reading, rigorous writing, and clarity of articulation as foundational academic practices. Her pedagogical approach encourages students to move beyond prescribed texts, engage deeply with institutional realities, interrogate dominant narratives, and participate in sustained intellectual engagement.
With over a decade of teaching experience at Azim Premji University (2014–2024), she has contributed significantly to strengthening interdisciplinary curricula and advancing inquiry-driven learning environments.
Currently serving as the Associate Dean (Academic Operations and Outreach) at the Easwari School of Liberal Arts (ESLA), SRM University-AP, she plays a key role in academic leadership, strengthening the school of liberal arts, and institutional development. Her vision centers on building a vibrant intellectual community through collaboration, fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, and nurturing spaces for critical inquiry.
Her work continues to foreground the importance of Liberal Arts education as a vital site for engaging with complex global and social processes, enabling learners to connect the past, present, and future through meaningful and socially grounded knowledge systems.
Prof. Ranjit Thapa is an acclaimed academician with more than a decade of experience in the teaching and research domain. He has been a part of the SRM educational institutions for the past ten years. Before becoming the Dean of the School of Engineering and Sciences (SEAS), he held various positions, including the Associate Dean of the School of Engineering and Sciences (SEAS) and Head of the Department of Physics at SRM university-AP.
He began his career as a Research Associate at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science in 2011. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea. He worked at the SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, for six years, and this marked the beginning of his journey with the SRM group of educational institutions.
Science and Engineering Research Board awarded the International Travel Grant to him in 2014. He also got the ICTP-Full support Fellowship in 2015 to attend the Materials Science for Energy Storage Workshop at Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. In 2016, he got an Associateship in the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, India. He was honoured with the Young Scientist Research Award in 2018 by the Department of Atomic Energy, India.
Prof. Ranjit Thapa is a core member of the Asian Consortium on Computational Materials Science and a life member of the Indian Science Congress Association. He has done a total of eight government-funded project works, published two patents and authored more than 140 research papers during his career. Currently, he is developing a “Materials database” under the funded projects. He has guided five PhD students to date. In 2016, under his leadership, SRM Institute of Science and Technology established a High-performance computer centre on the Chennai campus.
Prof. Ranjit Thapa is an expert in understanding the electronic structure of materials using first principles analysis and molecular dynamics approach. Professor Ranjit Thapa’s research works are primarily focused on density functional theory-based investigation of low dimensional materials as a catalyst for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), oxygen evolution reaction (OER), hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR), CO oxidation and absorber materials for solar cells. The main contributions are: “electron-doped 2D system as a metal-free catalyst”, “inverse catalyst”, and “pi electron descriptor”. Structural and electronic descriptors are identified to define the catalytic activity of graphene. The above works were published in the journals such as Nano-Micro Letters (2023), Chemical Science (2022), PNAS (2022), Advanced Functional Materials (2022, 2015), ACS Nano (2022, 2021), Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2022, 2021, 2015, 2014); Applied Catalyst B: Environmental (2021), CARBON (2023, 2021, 2020, 2019); Journal of Power Sources (2020, 2020); Advanced Materials Technology (2019); SMALL (2018), Nano Energy (2018), ACS Applied Materials & Interface, (2023, 2016, 2015), ACS Catalysis, (2014), Nature Communications (2013).
He was an invited speaker at several national and international seminars, symposia and workshops, including Recent Advancements and Innovation in Solar Energy (RAiSE), Asian Meetings on Ferroelectrics (AMF), National Conference on Electronic Structure (NCES), Asian Consortium on Computational Materials Science and many more. During his service, he also guided and conducted several conferences at SRM University-AP, like the Second International Conference on Materials Genome, National Conference on Electronic Structure, etc.
E-mail id : dean.research@srmap.edu.in
Contact No : 863-2343000
