Biographical note

Dr. Nitasha Hasteer is a Professor & Head of the Information Technology Department and Dy. Director (Academics) at Amity School of Engineering and Technology, Amity University, India. She has 24 years of teaching, research, and administrative experience in academics and industry. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering, and her interest areas are machine learning, cloud computing, crowdsourced software development, software project management, and process modeling through multi-criteria decision-making techniques. She has published over 80 papers in various journals and international conferences in these areas and has guided many postgraduate students in their dissertations. She has been on the editorial board of many international conferences, journals and has obtained funding from government agencies such as the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science Technology (DST), Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for organizing events on latest cutting edge technologies in the area of Information Technology. She is a member of the International Association of Computer Science & Information Technology (IACSIT), Singapore, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), UK, and various other professional bodies. 

Dr. Seán McLoone is Professor of Applied Computational Intelligence and Director of the Centre for Intelligent Autonomous Manufacturing Systems (i-AMS) at Queen’s University Belfast. Prof McLoone’s research interests are in the general area of intelligent systems with a particular focus on data-based modeling and analysis of dynamical systems. This encompasses techniques ranging from classical system identification, fault diagnosis, and statistical process control to modern artificial intelligence and biologically inspired adaptive learning algorithms and optimization techniques. His research has a strong application focus, with many projects undertaken in collaboration with the industry in areas such as process monitoring: control, optimization, time series prediction, and in-line sensor characterization.  At a professional level, Prof. McLoone is a Chartered Engineer, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering Technology (IET), and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). He is a member of the IFAC Technical Committees on Computational Intelligence in Control (TC3.2), and Modelling, Identification, and Signal Processing (TC1.1). He has previously served as a Member of the Accreditation Board of Engineers Ireland and as a non-executive Director on the Board of Directors of Irish Manufacturing Research Ltd. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for the ‘Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control’ and as a member of the Editorial Board of ‘Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence'.

Dr. Purushottam Sharma is working as a Professor in the Department of Information Technology, Amity School of Engineering & Technology at Amity University Uttar Pradesh. He has more than 19 years of experience in research, academia, and industry. His research interests include artificial intelligence, data analytics, temporal data mining, and high-performance networks. Dr. Sharma has published more than 90 research papers in SCI, ESCI, Scopus-indexed journals, and reputed international conferences. He has multiple technical patents in his name. He is a Cisco certified Instructor Trainer ITQ (Instructor Trainer Qualification) and has also obtained CCNA, CCNA(R&S) Global Certificate from Cisco System USA. He has delivered lectures on Networking-related subjects in e-learning mode to 29 African Countries using the Pan-African Network at Amity University Uttar Pradesh. 

Dr. Ranjana Nallamalli is an outstanding scientist and Director for the Directorate of Futuristic Technology Management at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), New Delhi. She has over three decades of rich experience in DRDO in various roles dealing with niche technologies and development of new technologies in the domain of defence systems. During her outstanding career she contributed to various technology segments which has successfully steered various projects. A graduate in Physics and Postgraduate in Computer Science she has published papers in national and international journals. She holds a Doctorate in Computer Science in the field of Formal Verification of mission software. She has co-authored the DRDO standard for software development and was instrumental is developing the framework and implementation of software policies and the standard across DRDO. She has spearheaded the corporate Directorate of System and Technology Analysis (DSTA) on identifying the new (futuristic) technology for various defence and related applications. She has brought out system analysis guidelines for application to the system design. She has been a missile quality practitioner and was part of Directorate of Quality, Reliability and Safety. She has also been Director of Public Interface and Information Technology and Cyber Security and has made significant contribution to IT & Cyber Security Policies. She was part of the team awarded Path Breaking Technology Group for the successful flight test of AGNI III in 2007. She has been conferred with the Technology Day Award at ASL for her work on establishing the Software Quality Assurance Division in 2008. She was honored with the ASL Technology Group Award in the year 2012, DRDO Award for Best Techno Managerial Services/Popular Science Communication for year 2020 and the World Congress on Disaster Management Award (WCDM) for the year 2021 for her contribution in Pioneering and Scalable Initiative in Ecosystem Management for her outstanding effort during Covid-19 Pandemic.