Dr. Varun Pratap Singh

Dr. Varun Pratap Singh is an assistant professor and industry academia coordinator in the mechanical engineering cluster at UPES, Dehradun, India, and associated as a PDF with the Solar Thermal Energy Research Group, Department of Mechanical & Mechatronic Engineering, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, specializing in solar thermal energy research. Dr. Singh started working on solar thermal technology as his major project since his bachelors (B.Tech. Mechanical Engineering, Rank Holder) and continued his passion in his masters (M.Tech. Thermal, Mechanical Engineering, Gold Medallist) and during his Ph.D. (Mechanical Engineering-Solar Thermal) by conducting thermohydrolic analysis of different roughnesses in solar air heaters, respectively. In his current role, with academics, he is also responsible for industry-academia integration to provide solutions to the real-life challenges of design, product development, operations, automation, and the application of new technologies to real problems and challenges faced by industry and society.

Dr. Singh has vast experience in the field of mechanical engineering, with more than 12 years of teaching, research, and administrative experience. Before joining UPES, Dr. Singh served as an assistant professor and Head-Center of Excellence (coordinating between 16 different centers), Head-Solar Energy Center, Industry-Academia Relations Coordinator, Researcher, and Warden at the College of Engineering Roorkee (COER), Roorkee, India. He also successfully guided 100+ scholars from B.Tech. and M.Tech. programs during their major and minor projects, having three ongoing PhDs, two M.Tech., and nine B.Tech. scholars.

Renewable and Sustainable Energy, Solar Thermal Energy Systems and Applications, Green Hydrogen, Micro-Hydro, Carbon Capturing, Storage, and Utilization, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and Special Purpose Machines (SPM).

To help students learn effectively and efficiently, Dr. Singh started using various online educational platforms such as Google Classroom (since 2014), Microsoft Teams (since 2018), and Blackboard (since 2020) with the integration of various MOOC platforms like edX (since 2014), Corsera (since 2014), Spoken Tutorial (since 2015), NPTEL (since 2016), SWAYAM (since 2018), Virtual Lab (since 2018), and hands-on latest tools and case studies like AR/VR/MV (since 2020) applications in the classroom (through Meta Quest 2). He has also worked to create case study-based lectures, study material, and PBL since 2018 that help students become more familiar with the concepts.

Being a teacher, Dr. Singh always feel motivated to serve society in a more meaningful way. With this in mind, he started sharing his subject notes and PPTs on Slideshare.com from 2014 onwards (free of charge) and today’s the total view counts on his account have crossed 100,000+ views with 5500+ downloads of different PPTs, which gives him a sense of self-satisfaction and the worth of sharing.

University Subjects Taught: Hybrid and Electric Vehicles, Automation in Manufacturing, Product Design and Development, Engineering Graphics/Design, Final Year Project Coordinator, Basic Mechanical Engineering, Energy Conservation, Power Plants, Solar Energy, Applied Thermodynamics, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning, Heat and Mass Transfer, and Research Methodology.

Dr. Singh received several awards including: the awards for Outstanding Mentoring of Students; Perfect Faculty Award (student mentoring); Outstanding Teacher Award (Result); Outstanding Teacher Award (Result) and also get certification for NPTEL Enthusiastic (MOOC); NPTEL Believer (MOOC); SPOC Recognition by IIT Bombay.

He has published 30+ research publications (including 16+ SCIE and 12 Scopus papers), five patents, edited three books, and authored more than 15+ book chapters for Springer, Elsevier, and CRC Press. He is an editor for IJERA journal, edited two special issue of SCIE journal Energies, reviewed for more than ten SCIE journals. He completed nine projects as principal investigator (PI) and two projects as co-PI for various research organizations and industry partners with research grants of more than twenty lakh INR. He has delivered many invited talks in international and national webinar, FDP and Workshops and attended 20+ MOOCs and 15+ FDPs from various international and national bodies like DTU-Netherlands, Tsinghua University-China, National Chiao Tung University- Taiwan, IMF, IITs, and AICTE.

In terms of his commitment to serve society, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Singh developed a true N-95 Mask manufacturing and production unit, automatic sensitizer dispenser units (1-5 litter capacity). Beyond these industrial collaborations, he also developed "a UV oven, a UV blaster, a UV sanitizer hand-held device, an automatic sensitizer tunnel (for humans, cars, and heavy-duty vehicles), face shields (170-600 GSM), a three-ply mask, and a foot-operated hands-free sanitizer machine" under his R&D facility.

varunpratap.singh@ddn.upes.ac.in