Dr. Maneesha V Ramesh is the Provost, Strategic Initiatives, Research & Innovation at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. She is also the Dean, School for Sustainable Development. She has held the UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation & Development since 2020

In 2019 and 2020, Stanford University, USA has ranked Dr. Maneesha, as one among the global top 2% scientists in the Networking & Telecommunication field, for the quality of her research. As one of the world’s leading scientist, she has carefully combined interdisciplinary domains of internet of things, meteorology, hydrology, geology and data science to build world’s first AI integrated IoT based landslide early warning system under the direct guidance of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Chancellor, Sri. Mata Amritanandamayi Devi. Her extensive work in multi-disciplinary areas such as internet of things, wireless networks, wireless sensor networks, ML & AI, and sustainable development, successfully applied on thematic areas such as disaster management, water sustainability, healthcare applications, energy sustainability and education access, has provided direct contribution for societal development.

Dr. Maneesha’s extensive work in provisioning sustainable solutions through Live-in-Labs®️, a multidisciplinary experiential learning program, for 108+ communities adopted by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and its parent organisation MA Math, has led to Amrita University being the only university in India to have an UNESCO Chair on Experiential Learning for Sustainable Innovation and Development. She is also the Program Head for ‘Jivamritam’, a purified clean drinking water initiative, to install clean drinking water solutions in 5,000 villages to provide clean drinking water to over 10 million people throughout India. She is also an inventor of low power wireless Remote ECG wearable devices and invented a revolutionary new communication network for fishermen, that can be used by them, upto a distance of 120 KM when at sea. Her work in landslide disaster management has recently brought accolades to Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. The International Program on Landslides has declared Amrita as “World Center of Excellence on Landslide Disaster Risk Reduction 2020-2023” at their World Landslide Forum, Kyoto, Japan. In her role as the Dean of International programs, she has been able to sign more 200+ Memorandum of Understanding with world’s top universities and thus brought Amrita University to forge extensive international academic and research collaborations in several areas of research at Amrita.

Research & societal development being her primary focus, she is presently guiding more than 18 PhD students to mould them as India’s young scientists of the future, who she inspires to work towards the betterment of society by understanding and studying societal needs.

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Awards and Recognitions

Awards Received by Chairholder Dr. Maneesha V Ramesh

• Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks and Applications headed by Dr. Maneesha V Ramesh, emerged winner of the 2023 Averted Disaster Awards for outstanding Disaster Risk Management (DRM) intervention in Berlin, Oct 12, 2023
  

• Dr. Maneesha V Ramesh received the award on behalf of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s World Centre of Excellence on Landslides – the prestigious International Program on Landslides, Kyoto Landslide Consortium (IPL-KLC) Award for Success. The award was presented in the ongoing 6th World Landslide Forum at the historic Palazzo dei Congressi, Florence, Italy, on 14th November. 

• Amrita has been re-conferred the title of World Centre of Excellence on Landslide Risk Reduction (WCoEs)” for the 3rd time in a row by the International Programme on Landslides (IPL) 
• Dr. Maneesha has been recognized as the world’s top 2 percent list of scientists published by the US-based Stanford University for the 3rd time in a row.

Chair Speak

Dr. Maneesha V Ramesh has represented the UNESCO Chair at the various national and international events delivering distinguished lectures and keynote addresses thereby providing expert opinion in the areas of UN SDGs

• International Womens Day Symposium: Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers, Feb 8
• 25 Anniversary Celebrations of INCOIS, Hyderabad, India Feb 3rd
• COP28: Indigenizing Education for Climate Action: Strategies, Case Studies and Testimonies, Dubai, UAE
• Indo Dutch Workshop in collaboration with TU Delft, Mumbai, Nov 2023
• World Landslide Forum 6, Florence, Italy, Nov 2023
• 10th South and Central Asian Biosphere Reserve Network Meeting, (SACAM), Nov 2023
•  Averted Disaster Award, Berlin, Germany, Oct 2023
• Civil 20 India 2023 Summit, Jaipur, India, July 2023
• Global Sustainable Development Congress held from 30 May – 1 June 2023 at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia.
• Civil 20 India 2023 Inception Meeting, Nagpur, India, April 2023
• ICL-KLC Hybrid Conference, 22-25 November 2022 in Kyoto, Japan
• ISEG’s International Conference – EGCON, 2022, 16-17 November 2022, Kolkata
• 7th Ideal Village Conference on Rural Transformation for Sustainable Growth jointly organised by Stanford Ideal Village Project, WHEELS Global Foundation, Pan IIT-Alumni, CII, FIPA, FICCI, AARDO and Banaras Hindu University 

Amrita at UNITWIN/UNESCO Chairs Conference: Transforming knowledge for Just and Sustainable Futures

7th Ideal Village Conference (Varanasi)

Distinguished Lecture at SPASHT 2021, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences

International Symposium on Educational Pedagogies and Technologies for Sustainable Development

Sustainability & Beyond Colloquium Series

International Symposium on IoT and ML for Ecosystem Restoration and Multi Hazard Resilience

International Symposium on Water Sustainability (IWSS 2021)

Speaker at NSOIM (National Social Organization and Institutions Meet) 2021

Distinguished Lecture – Colloquium Series, UPC, Spain

Keynote Speaker for W36 Summit

International Symposium on Tsunami Risk Reduction & Community Resilience

UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Technical Consultation on the Revision of the 1974 Recommendation

Environmental Friendly Technologies of Urbanised Territories