Prof. Manish Kumar

Prof. Manish Kumar is the Head of the Department of Civil, Health, Safety, and Environment at UPES, Dehradun, India. In addition, he holds the position of Distinguished Professor in Water Science at the School of Engineering and Sciences, Tec de Monterrey, Mexico. He earned his PhD in Environmental Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan, and has supervised ten PhD theses and over 50 master dissertations to date. Prof. Kumar has an extensive publication record, including approximately 200 international journal articles cited over 10,000 times, with an h-index of around 50 and an i-10 index of approximately 150. He has also authored around 50 book chapters and edited 12 books. Throughout his career, he has conceived and directed numerous research projects, securing over INR 50 million in funding. He previously served as the Coordinator for the Centre for Sustainable Development at IITGN. Prof. Kumar has been recognized for his expertise in various areas, such as being a part of the Expert Panel for UNEP on antimicrobial resistance, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC), and being featured in the World's Top 2% researcher list by Stanford University, USA.

Apart from being a full-time faculty member at UPES since August 2021, Prof. Kumar is currently associated with renowned international universities, including Chuo University as a Visiting Professor and Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico, as a Distinguished Professor in Water Science - School of Engineering and Sciences. He has previously served as a faculty member in the Discipline of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Additionally, he held a visiting faculty position at the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), NE, USA, under the Water Advanced Research and Innovation (WARI) Fellowship from May 2016 to March 2017. He began his teaching career as an Assistant Professor at Tezpur University, India.

Prof. Kumar's research interests are diverse and span from environmental engineering to COVID-19 surveillance. He is known for his extensive work on water-based waste epidemiology, making him a pioneer in the field in India and abroad. His research aims to broaden the understanding and development of various aspects related to the fate, transport, and remediation of freshwater systems, including geogenic, micro, microbial, and emerging contaminants.

Prof. Kumar's teaching philosophy centres around leading by example. He engages students through interactive presentations using live examples to instil confidence in young learners. He strongly believes that everyone possesses a talent that can be honed through practical application and practice. By demonstrating the improvement journey of illustrations used in his research articles, he emphasizes the idea that "if he can, then anyone can."

Prof. Kumar teaches a variety of subjects, including Fundamentals of Sustainable Development, Groundwater, and Research Methodology, to students ranging from Bachelor to PhD level. He particularly enjoys teaching statistics and modelling to young researchers, as he considers it a prerequisite for any researcher.

Prof. Kumar has received numerous awards and grants, including two KPCSD COVID-19 Research Awards, Faculty Research Award by Careers 360 for being India's top 10 knowledge producer for the academic year 2017-2018 in the Environmental Science Discipline, Water Advanced Research and Innovation (WARI) Fellowship supported by the Department of Science and Technology (DST), GoI, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), the Daugherty Water for Food Institute (DWFI), and the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), and a Research Grant Award by Kurita Water and Environment Foundation (KWEF), Tokyo, Japan, among others.

Prof. Kumar actively contributes to various reputed journals and serves as an editorial board member for journals such as Nature Partner Journals (NPJ) Clean Water, Science of the Total Environment, ACS ES&T-Engineering ES&T Letters, Current Pollution Report (Springer), Groundwater for Sustainable Development, and Japan Society for Water's journal Hydrological Research Letter. He has also held lead managing editor positions for special issues of the Journal of Hazardous Material, Science of the Total Environment (STOTEN), and Journal of Environmental Management (Elsevier). Moreover, he has participated in expert panels and committees related to research and water management. He is a Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry and holds various roles within the International Water Association (IWA), including South Asian Convener for the Specialist Group, Metals and Related Substances in Drinking Water (METRELS) and National Level Executive Committee member for India.

manish.kumar@ddn.upes.ac.in