Professor Sukumar Bandopadhyay (far right corner of the image)

Sukumar Bandopadhyay has been named dean of the University of Alaska Fairbanks School of Mineral Engineering. He has served as interim dean since July 2001 and has been at UAF since 1982 as a professor and department head.

Bandopadhyay has been actively involved in UAF’s Academic Advising Center for more than a decade and received the Carol Feist award for outstanding undergraduate advising.

"The school has a long and historic tie to mineral engineering in Alaska," said Bandopadhyay. "As long as the state depends on its natural resources as a source of revenue, our graduates will continue to be instrumental to that success."
Bandopadhyay, a registered professional engineer in the state of Alaska, received his bachelor’s degree in mining engineering and a master’s of technology degree in mine planning from the Banaras Hindu University, India. He also holds a master’s degree in Mining Engineering and Operations Research and a doctorate in Mining Engineering from Pennsylvania State University. As dean he will also serve as the director of both the Petroleum Development Laboratory, and the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory at UAF. Bandopadhyay has worked in coal and metal mines in various supervisory capacities for more than five years.

Bandopadhyay is the founder-chair of the International Arctic Mining Council and was a co-editor of the proceedings of the first and second International Symposiums on Mining in the Arctic. He has been a visiting professor at Lulea University in Sweden, and he has served on the United Nations’ Development Program as a consultant.

The School of Mineral Engineering is composed of the Department of Mining and Geological Engineering, the Department of Petroleum Engineering, the Mineral Industry Research Laboratory and the Petroleum Development Laboratory.

Professor Uday Kumar

Dr. Uday Kumar obtained his B. Tech from BHU, India during the year 1979. After working for 6 years in Indian mining industries, he joined the postgraduate program of Luleå University of Technology, Sweden in 1986 and obtained a PhD degree in field of Reliability and Maintenance during 1990. He worked as a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor at Luleå University. In 1997, he was appointed as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Maintenance) at Stavanger University College, Stavanger, Norway. Since July 2000, he has taken up the position as a Professor of Mechanical Engineering (Operation and Maintenance) at Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

He is Director of Luleå Railway Research Center at Luleå University. He is also Research Program Coordinator for the Research School on “Business and Technology Network, at Luleå University of Technology, Luleå. He is also a visiting Professor at Stavanger University College, Stavanger, Norway.

His research interests are Equipment maintenance, maintenance strategy, reliability and maintainability analysis, Product support Life Cycle Costing, Risk analysis, System analysis, Maintenance performance measurements etc.

He is also member of the editorial boards and reviewer for many international journals. He has published more than 100 reports and papers in International Journals and Conference proceedings.

Professor Robin Chowdhury (centre of the image)

The Head of Civil and Mining Engineering at the University of Wollongong Robin Chowdhury was farewelled by colleagues and friends at the University recently. Professor Chowdhury completed his bachelors degree from BHU and is retiring after 31 years.

Professor Pankaj Chandra





Professor Pankaj Chandra completed his B Tech. degree in Mining Engg. in the year 1983 followed by a Phd from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in the year 1989. Other details are as follows:

Current Position
Professor, Operations & Technology Management, 1997-current

Past Positions
Chairperson, Doctoral Programme, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India, 2003-2005

Chairperson, Centre of Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India, 1999-2001

Associate Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India, 1995-1997

Associate Professor (with tenure), McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1994-1995

Assistant Professor, Faculty of Management, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1988-1994

Visiting Positions
Visiting Professor, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University, Ithaca, USA, October 2004.

Visiting Professor, International University of Japan, Niigata, Japan, May-June, 2003 & 2004

Associate Dean (Academic Affairs & Post Graduate Programme), Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India, 2001-2002

Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1994-1995

Visiting Professor, Department of Industrial Economics, Renmin University, Beijing, China, December 1993

Visiting Professor, SES-COMIN, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland, April-June, 1991

Lecturer, Department of Decision Sciences, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, September-December, 1986.

Research Associate, The Industry Department, The World Bank, Washington D.C., USA, June-September, 1985

Research Associate, US Bureau of Mines Project, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA

Research Interests
Manufacturing Management, Supply Chain Coordination, Technology Networks & Capability Building in Manufacturing Firms

Teaching Interests
Operations Management. Marketing, Manufacturing & Supply Chain Coordination. Managing Technology Networks, Technology driven Entrepreneurship, Decision Theory