Dr. Ayon Kumar Tarafdar (Associate Professor, Planning) completed his doctorate degree from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU, Norway) in 2010, with the acclaimed full-time Norwegian Government Research Fellowship. His doctoral thesis focussed on understanding linkages between development practices and its environmental impact at a local level.
He has 23 publications with international journals and publishers (ISBN/ISSN), 5 book chapters, and 13 international conference presentations (see attached CV for details). He has experience of over fourteen years in research, industry and teaching (over eighteen years if the time spent for acquiring all his educational qualifications is included).
He finished his Bachelors degree from the School of Planning and Architecture (Delhi) in 2000. Thereafter, he completed his MSc in Urban Ecological Planning in 2002 from the Dept of Town and Regional Planning at NTNU, Norway with NTNU full-scholarship. Then, he worked for about five years as an urban planner and GIS analyst in the private industry based out of Delhi. During this period, he was also the Editor of the largest GIS portal of the world "Geospatial World" for one year. His professional practice includes projects and field experience in India, North America, UAE, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, and parts of Europe.
As an academic, he has delivered special invited lectures and served as external jury member at IIT Kharagpur, IISc Banglore, SPA Delhi, CEPT University Ahmedabad, NIT Trichy, VNIT Nagpur, IIEST Shibpur, and SPA Bhopal. He is also an Advisory Member to UPSC, Government of India and was a Member of the National Educational Standing Committee of the Institute of Town Planners, India (ITPI), under MoUD, GoI.
He had been working as the Dean (Planning and Development) for the institution between 2019-20. He was also the Head, Department of Planning at SPA Vijayawada for two terms, i.e., during the period April 2011-August 2013 and May 2016-September 2017, wherein he was instrumental to the initiation of credit patterned CGPA system, syllabus revision of B.Plan, start of the first M.Planning (Environmental Planning) and Doctoral programme in the Department. He has taught and developed MS level courses at NTNU, Norway (2008-10) and was a visiting faculty at Department of Environmental Planning at SPA, Delhi (2005-06).
He has conducted several workshops and training programmes and has been part of international research projects (as detailed in the CV attached herewith). His professional experience spans the domains of environmental management, disaster preparedness and use of GIS in urban development. He has academic interests in livelihoods analysis of the less-endowed, ecological planning and use of geospatial tools.
CV