Team | IGCS | Indo-German Centre for Sustainability

Ulrich Rüdiger has been rector of RWTH Aachen University since 2018. He studied Physics with a research focus on Solid State Physics at RWTH Aachen University from 1988 to 1994. In 1997 he wrote his doctoral thesis and in 2002 his habilitation in the group of Prof. Dr. G. Güntherodt at RWTH Aachen University, before moving to the University of Konstanz as Professor of Experimental Physics in the same year. He headed the university as rector from 2009 to 2018. In 1997 he was a Post-Doctoral Fellow at New York University in the group of Prof. Dr. A.D. Kent with visits at the IBM Research Laboratory in San Jose and at the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility of Cornell University in the USA. He is a member of numerous committees, including the German Rectors’ Conference, whose Vice President for Research and Young Scientists he was from 2014 to 2018. Among his responsibilities as Rector of RWTH Aachen University is his membership in the Board of Directors of the International Charlemagne Prize of Aachen and in the Advisory Board of the Aachen Engineering Award. Ulrich Rüdiger published about 140 publications in national and international journals and was awarded several awards and honorary doctorates, among them the “Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques”, Award of the Republic of France in 2012.

Prof. Kamakoti Veezhinathan took charge as the new Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras on the 17^th of January 2022. Prof Kamakoti takes charge as Director from his predecessor, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, who has completed two terms as the Director of the Institute. Prof. Kamakoti is a faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Madras and also held the position of Associate Dean for Industrial Consultancy and Sponsored Research (ICSR), IIT Madras. He holds numerous positions in various Government agencies and bodies including being a member of the National Security Advisory Board, Government of India.

Since 2018 Univ.-Prof. Dr. Klaus Reicherter is the centre coordinator at RWTH Aachen University for the IGCS – Indo-German Centre of Sustainability in Chennai/India and the Rector´s delegate for India.
He is Full Professor and head of the Neotectonics and Natural Hazards Institute since 2006. He was spokesperson of the German Science Foundation (DFG) for the Geology panel for 8 years (2013-2020). He has published more 200 publications and >100 ISI Journal papers. KR has supervised more than 30 PhD students and currently supervising 15 PhD students, 3 post-doctoral fellows. KR´s main interests are earthquake geology and neotectonics, many sidekicks like tsunami and landslide research. Furthermore he is interested in paleoclimate, landscape evolution and anthropogenic geology (modifications induced by humans and outreach). KR has been working mainly in the European Mediterranean region, Germany and other countries like Chile, China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, India, Oman, USA, Cuba, Iceland, as well as many others and very recent India. He has extensive industry connections and has international collaborations with a number of universities.

Krishna Vasudevan received his B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering (power) from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, in 1989, and his M.E. degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1991. Between 1991 and 1992 he worked as a senior engineer in Kirloskar Electrc Company, responsible for developing UPS systems. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from IIT, Madras, in 1996. Between 1996 and 1998, he was also Senior Engineer with M/s Lucas TVS Ltd., involved in the performance improvement of automotive alternators. From 1998 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, where he is currently a Professor. Dr. Krishna Vasudevan is a recipient of Best student Award during his Master’s study at IISc, and is a recipient of DAAD fellowship for research in Germany during 2006. He has guided several students at the PhD, Masters and Btech levels. He has also interacted with several industries during the course of his tenure at IITM by way of consultancy and technology development. His research interests are in the area of power electronics for renewable energy, machines and drives.

Prof. Dr. Frank Behrendt, born 1959, studied chemistry at RWTH Aachen and Heidelberg University. He got his PhD in 1989 from Heidelberg University and his habilitation at Stuttgart University in 1999.
Since 2001 Behrendt Full Professor for Energy Process Engineering and Conversion Technologies for Renewable Energies at Berlin Institute of Technology (TU Berlin). His scientific work focuses on the experimental investigation of reactive multi-phase flows exemplified by the pyrolysis and gasification of biomass as well as liquefaction of coal and biomass in various types of reactors. These experiments are complemented by extensive modelling and numerical simulation efforts as well as their economic and ecological evaluation. His research portfolio also includes activities in the field of energy system modelling, e.g., integration of renewable energies into electrical and thermal grids.

Krishna Vasudevan received his B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering (power) from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, in 1989, and his M.E. degree in electrical engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 1991. Between 1991 and 1992 he worked as a senior engineer in Kirloskar Electrc Company, responsible for developing UPS systems. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from IIT, Madras, in 1996. Between 1996 and 1998, he was also Senior Engineer with M/s Lucas TVS Ltd., involved in the performance improvement of automotive alternators. From 1998 he has been with the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras, where he is currently a Professor. Dr. Krishna Vasudevan is a recipient of Best student Award during his Master’s study at IISc, and is a recipient of DAAD fellowship for research in Germany during 2006. He has guided several students at the PhD, Masters and Btech levels. He has also interacted with several industries during the course of his tenure at IITM by way of consultancy and technology development. His research interests are in the area of power electronics for renewable energy, machines and drives.

Martina Fromhold-Eisebith is full professor at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where she holds the Chair of Economic Geography since 2006. She joined IGCS as Area Coordinator of Land Use/ Urban and Rural Development in late 2017. Since 2016 she is an appointed member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). Earlier in her career she was professor of regional development and planning at the University of Salzburg, Austria, guest scientist at the Austrian Research Centers, Vienna, and senior researcher at several German universities. Her research interests cover issues of technology-oriented regional development and of environmental economic geography, focusing on how innovations and ‘smart’ solutions can support more sustainable industries and socio-economic development. Empirical research activities have covered Asian countries (focus on India and Indonesia) as well as European regions.

Dr. Ashwin Mahalingam joined the faculty of the Civil engineering department at IIT-Madras in 2006. Ashwin received his B.Tech in Civil engineering from IIT-Madras and then proceeded to Stanford University for a Masters in Construction Engineering and Management. He then helped start up an internet based company in the USA called All Star Fleet, aimed at providing asset management services for construction companies. Following this he returned to Stanford University to pursue a PhD in the area of Infrastructure Project Management. Ashwin’s research interests are in the areas of Public Private Partnerships (PPP), Resilient infrastructure planning and management, governance of large engineering projects and digital construction. Ashwin is also a co-founder of Okapi Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd and serves as a Director on the Board.”

Prof. Dr. Nicola Fohrer is full professor of Hydrology and Water Resources Management and director of the Institute of Natural Resource Conservation at Kiel University since 2003. Her research focus is ecohydrology, water quality and water management in rural areas. She has a long-standing working experience with ecohydrological modelling of rural watersheds and water quality assessment of rivers and lakes under anthropogenic pressures. She has worked for more than 20 years in international research projects in e.g. India, China, Myanmar and Ethiopia as consortium leader and PI. She is strongly involved in academic training and has been responsible for the implementation of the Master of Environmental Management and the Erasmus Mundus Programme Ecohydrology at Kiel University. She has supervised 18 PhD students so far and is the supervisor of further 14 ongoing PhD theses. Two habilitations have been concluded under her guidance and both candidates hold now professorships in Germany and China, respectively. She has published more than 300 scientific publications, books and book chapter. She was president and is currently vice-president of the German Hydrological Society (DHG) and served for 8 years as member and spokesperson in the DFG review board for water science. Currently she is appointed as a member of the Leibniz Senate Commission for Evaluation (SAE), of the Global Water Partnership as member of the Technical Commission (TEC) and of the Georg Foster Commission of Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She was chair of the scientific board of the German National Committee of IHP/HWRP of the UNESCO from 2008 to 2014. She is committed to the Indo-German Centre for Sustainability at IIT Madras as area coordinator for water management at the since 2010.

Dr. S. A. Sannasiraj is the Professor of the Department of Ocean Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His area of specialization includes wave hydrodynamics, wind-wave modeling, numerical simulation of nonlinear wave-structure interaction and, coastal erosion and protection. He has supervised 16 phd scholars and, at present, 12 scholars are guided by him in the above specialization. Since 2003, he has completed 18 research projects sponsored by Department of Science & Technology, National Research Board, Indian Space Research Organization, European Union & National university of Singapore. At his credit, he has 94 peer-reviewed journal publication and participated over 150 technical conferences. During the last 10 years, he was awarded: DAAD fellowship from Germany during 2006 for tsunamic wave impact on coastal structures; Indian Maritime Award for 2005-’06 for the work on the prediction of tsunami using data buoys; Endeavour India Executive Award from Australian Government during 2007; Fulbright-Nehru senior research fellowship during 2011 for modeling tsunami impact on coastal structures. He has successfully executed more than 300 industrial projects of nature port and harbours, intake/ outfall systems, design of coastal protection structures and wind-wave prediction. Further, he has organized about 20 short Courses and Workshops duing the last 10 years for Researchers, Field Engineers, Faculties & Senior Managers

Mr Weichgrebe, born in 1964, studied process engineering with focus on environmental process engineering at the Technical University of Clausthal from 1983 to 1989, where he received his doctorate in 1993 on the topic of “Chemical Oxidative Wastewater Treatment”. After stations at the Clausthaler Umwelttechnik Institute GmbH (CUTEC-Institute GmbH), Clausthal and the Consulting Engineers DIETERICH, Mainz, Mr Weichgrebe was senior engineer at the Institute of Sanitary Engineering and Waste Management at Leibniz University of Hanover from 1999 to 2005. Since 2005, he is head of the research area “Waste Management and Circular Economy, Anaerobic Processes and Material Flow Analysis” and habilitated in 2015 on the topic of “Bioenergy”. Against the backdrop of climate change, the rising global demand for resources and increasing challenges in the treatment and processing of waste, he and his research field are developing cross-system solutions for the conversion of waste into marketable products and for their environmentally sound disposal. In addition to the recovery of nutrients and upcycling, the focus is on the sustainable generation of renewable energies.  His research focuses on the development and optimisation of processes, methods and concepts for the circular economy that can be transferred into practice. With the help of the integrated cross-sectoral consideration of supply and disposal (in the nexus of water, energy, resources, land and food), strategies are developed to reduce greenhouse gases and to achieve ambitious environmental protection or sustainability goals. Mr Weichgrebe has been active in India since 2008 with research and development projects as well as consulting and training services. In 2023, he started at the IGCS as area coordinator for solid waste management.

Dr. R. Vinu is currently an Associate Professor in Chemical Engineering at IIT Madras, Chennai. He obtained Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, in 2010. Prior to joining IIT Madras in 2012, he was a postdoctoral researcher in Chemical and Biological Engineering at Northwestern University. At IIT Madras, he leads an active research group that focuses on thermochemical conversion of a variety of feedstocks such as biomass, waste plastics, algae, refuse derived fuels, municipal solid wastes (MSW) and coals to liquid fuels and chemicals. He is the recipient of several awards including (a) Young Scientist Awards of the Indian National Science Academy and National Academy of Sciences, India, in 2018, (b) Institute Research and Development Award-Early Career level from IIT Madras in 2018, (c) Young Associate of the Indian Academy of Sciences-Bangalore in 2017, and (d) Young Faculty Recognition Award from IIT Madras in 2015. He also serves as an Editor of Advanced Powder Technology, and Editorial Board Member of Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis.