Biographical note

Ajit K. Verma is a Professor (Technical Safety), ATØM, Stord/Haugesund University College, Haugesund, Norway (since March 2012) and has been a Professor (since Feb 2001) and Senior (HAG) scale Professor (since Jan 2013) with the Department ofElectrical Engineering at IIT Bombay with a research focus in Reliability and Safety Engineering( He has been on leave from IIT Bombay since March 2012). He was the Director of the International Institute of Information Technology Pune, on lien from IIT Bombay, from Aug 2009-Sep 2010. He has supervised/co-supervised 37 PhDs(IIT Bombay and Lulea Technical University, Sweden) and 95 Masters theses(IIT Bombay; LJMU,UK; WMG,Warwick University,UK) in the area of Electronics System reliability, Software Reliability, Reliable Computing, Power Systems Reliability (PSR), Reliability Centred  Maintenance (RCM) and Probabilistic Safety/Risk Assessment (PSA) and Plant Engineering. He is the Springer Book Series Editor of Reliable & Sustainable Electric Power and Energy Systems Management and jointly edited(with Prof.Roy Billinton and Prof.Rajesh Karki) books titled 1.Reliability and Risk Evaluation of Wind Integrated Power Systems 2. Reliability Modeling and Analysis of Smart Power Systems andis also an author of books titled Fuzzy Reliability Engineering-Concepts and Applications (Narosa), Optimal Maintenance of Large Engineeringinitial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Systems(Narosa), Reliability and Safety Engineering (Springer), Dependability of Networked Computer Based Systems (Springer),Risk Management of Non-Renewable Energy Systems(Springer). He has over 250 publications in various journals (125 papers) and conferences. He is a senior member of IEEE and a life fellowof IETE. He has been the Editor-in-Chief of OPSEARCH published by Springer(Jan 2008-Jan 2011) as well as the Founder Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Systems Assurance Engineering and Management(IJSAEM) published by Springer and an Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Life Cycle Reliability and Safety Engineering. He has been on the editorial board of international journals like Quality Assurance (Associate Editor), International Journal of Automation & Computing(Springer) (Associate Editor), Communications in Dependabilityand Quality Management, International Journal of Performability Engineering, International Journal of Reliability, Quality andSafety Engineering (World Scientific), International Journal of Quality, Statistics, andReliability (Hindawi) and on the advisory board of OPSEARCH(published by Springer) and International Journal of Swarm Intelligence(Inderscience). He has served as a Guest Editor of Special Issueof IETE Technical Review on Quality Management in Electronics, Telecommunication& Information Technology, 2001 and as a Guest Editor of Special Issue of International Journal of Reliability, Quality and Safety Engineering (World Scientific) Dec 2004, June 2006, April 2008, Dec 2009 & June 2010. He hasbeen a Guest Editor of Special Issue of DQM Communications, 2006, 2007 & 2009 and Special Issue on ‘Dependability in computing systems’ of International Journal ofPerformability Engineering, 2006. He was a Guest Editor of Special Issue on ‘Reliable Computing’ of International Journal of Automation and Computing (Oct 2007), May 2010, IJSAEM (June 2010) (with Prof Roy Billintonand Prof RajeshKarki) and IJSAEM (March 2011) ( with Prof Lotfi Zadeh and Prof Ashok Deshpande) and IEEE Transactions on Reliability, March 2011 . He is an Editor of ` Current Trends in Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Safety- An Industry Perspective` being published by Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, Springer Series. 

Prof. A. Srividya is a Professor II at Stord/Haugesund University College(Aug 2014-July 2015). She was a Guest Professor from August 2012 till July 2014 at Stord/Haugesund University College, Haugesund,Norway prior to which she worked with IIT Bombay since 1988 where she is a Professor in Civil Engineering with research focus in the areas of Reliability & Safety Engineering and Quality Management. She has supervised/co-supervised 28 PhD’s and 50 Masters thesis in the area of Structural Reliability, Reliability Based Optimisation, Simulation Studies for Reliability Estimation, Quality Benchmarking Studies for Service Industries, Quality Systems and Accelerated Life Testing. She has executed various research projects to promote industry interface and has been course co-ordinator for industry CEPs like Reliability Engineering and Quality Management and Six Sigma for IT industries. She has jointly authored books titled “Fuzzy Reliability Engineering-Concepts and Applications”(Narosa) and ‘Optimal Maintenance of Large Engineering Systems’(Narosa), ‘Reliability and Safety Engineering’(Springer), ‘Dependability of Networked Computer based Systems’(Springer)and `Risk Management of Non-Renewable Energy Systems’ (Springer). She has 205 publications in various international and national journals and conferences. She has been an Area Editor of OPSEARCH journal published by Springer as well as an Editor of International Journal of Systems Assurance Engineering and Management(IJSAEM) published by Springer and Member in the Editorial Board of International journal of Communications in Dependability and Quality Management. She has been Conference Chairperson of International Conference on Reliability, Safety & Hazard 2005 (Advances in Risk Informed Technology) at Hotel the Leela, Mumbai, Dec 01-03, 2005.She was instrumental in editing and reviewing the proceedings of various International Conferences like International Conference on Quality Reliability and Control 2001, International Conference on Multimedia and Design 2002 and International Conference on Quality Reliability and Information Technology 2003 and International Conference on Reliability, Safety & Hazard 2005 and anEditor of the proceedings (Narosa). She was also the Conference Chair for International Conference on Quality, Reliability and Infocom Technology  held at INSA, New Delhi(Dec’ 2-4),2006. She was a Conference Chair of the International Conference on Reliability, Safety and Quality Engineering, held at NPCIL, Mumbai from Jan 5-7, 2008 and Editor of the proceedings (Macmillan), Conference Chair, 4th International Conference on Quality, Reliability and Infocom Technology 2009 (ICQRIT - 2009), 18 - 20 Dec 2009 New Delhi, India. She is a recipient of “Leadership in Reliability Engineering Education & Research award” by Society of Reliability Engineering, Quality & Operations Management. 

Dr. Durga Rao Karanki has been working as a Scientist at Paul Scherrer Institute, Switzerland since 2009. His current research primarily focuses on dynamic risk assessment and uncertainty propagation. He is a visiting faculty at KINGS, Ulsan, South Korea and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He is on the editorial board of three international journals in the area of reliability and risk analysis. He has actively been involved in probabilistic safety assessment and risk informed decision-making research on nuclear reactors for the last 12 years. His research resulted in more than 50 publications including 2 books, 12 first author journal papers, and several conference papers. One of his works got into the list of most cited Reliability Engineering and System Safety articles (2013 and 2014). He received two awards (2009, 2012) for research Excellency from Society for Reliability Engineering, Quality and Operations Management (SREQOM), New Delhi. 

Prior to joining PSI, he worked as a Scientific Officer (2002- 2009) in PSA Section of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (Mumbai, India), where he conducted research on Dynamic Fault Tree Analysis, Uncertainty Analysis, and Risk Informed Decision Making. He was also a visiting faculty at Department of Atomic Energy (India) training schools. He holds B.Tech in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Nagarjuna University (India), M.Tech in Reliability Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur and Ph.D. from the IIT Bombay.