Biographical note

Manjaree Pandit obtained her M.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from Maulana Azad College of Technology, Bhopal, (India) in 1989 and Ph.D. degree from Jiwaji University, Gwalior, (India) in 2001. She is currently working as a dean academics & a professor in Department of Electrical Engineering, M.I.T.S., Gwalior, (India). She is a senior member of IEEE, a recognized reviewer of a few IEEE Transactions, Springer and Elsevier journals, and has published more than 110 papers in reputed international publications. She has been recognized as an outstanding reviewer by Elsevier and received Top Peer Reviewer Award from the international reviewer database site Publons (Clarivate Analytics) for being in top 1% of reviewers in Engineering for year 2017-19 & year 2018-2019 and top Peer Reviewer Award by Publons for being in top 1% of reviewers in cross field in year 2018-19. Her areas of interest are hybrid renewable energy resources integration with the power grid, nature-inspired algorithms, and artificial intelligence applications to electrical power system. She has successfully completed research projects funded from AICTE, DST, and UGC and has published 75 papers in international journals of repute, guided more than 70 PG dissertations and 06 Ph.D. candidates. Her papers are very well cited in Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. Dr. Manjaree Pandit has also received ISTE, India, National Research Award for year 2002 and 2004, certificate of Merit from Institution of Engineers, India, and UGC Research Award for carrying out postdoctoral work during 2009-2011. She has been involved in conducting a number of national/international conferences, workshops, and short-term courses.

Manoj Kumar Gaur is working as a professor and the head in Mechanical Engineering Department, an associate proctor, and the incharge of the Institute Industry Interaction Cell at Madhav Institute of Technology and Science, Gwalior, India. He has made substantial contributions to the fields of solar thermal energy, solar distillation, and heat and mass transfer applications. He possesses eighteen years of teaching experience of postgraduate and undergraduate classes. He has authored three books titled “Solar Energy: Problems Solutions and Experiments”, “Optimization of machining parameters of hard porcelain on CNC machine”, and “Solar Energy Systems: Thermal Analysis and Its Application”. Eighty of his papers have been published in various international and national journals and conferences. He is an active reviewer of prestigious Journal like Solar Energy, Desalination, Desalination and Water Treatment, Journal of Thermal Engineering, etc. His broad area of interest includes thermodynamics, heat transfer, solar energy, and solar distillation. He is a life member of the Indian Society for Technical Education (India) IET and a faculty advisor of Society of Automotive Engineers INDIA MITS chapter. He attended one-week summer school ‘UKERC’ at University of Sussex, Brighton, UK, in July 2009. He had obtained Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, and Master of Technology in Engineering Materials from Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, in 2002. He secured fifth position in the university in his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Branch from Oriental Institute of Technology and Science, Bhopal, in 1999.

Dr. Sandeep Kumar is currently an associate professor at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Bangalore. Before joining CHRIST, he worked with ACEIT, Jaipur, Jagannath University Jaipur, and Amity University, Rajasthan. He is an associate editor for Springer's Human-centric Computing and Information Sciences (HCIS) journal. He has published more than seventy research papers in various international journals/conferences and participated in many national and international conferences and workshops. He has authored/edited six books in the field of nature-inspired algorithms, swarm intelligence, soft computing, and computational intelligence.