Home Institution India: Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani

Rayson Kayalvarathu Alex

Dr. Rayson K. Alex is Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, K. K. Birla Goa Campus, Goa. His academic work lies in the area of ecocriticism, or broadly environmental humanities (EH) with a specific focus on indigenous nature-cultures and eco-cinema.

Dr. Alex was awarded his Ph.D. in 2011 for his dissertation in ecocriticism from the University of Madras. He is one of the editors of Essays in Ecocriticism (Sarup & Sons, Delhi, 2007), Culture and Media: Ecocritical Explorations (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), Ecodocumentaries: Critical Essays (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and Ecocultural Ethics: Critical Essays (Lexington Books, 2017). He has translated works from Malayalam: Ecocriticism in Malayalam (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022) and E for Elephant: Elephant Tales and More (Green Books, 2022). He is a recipient of the ASLE Translation and Media Subvention Grants and is the Founder and co-Director of the tiNai Ecofilm Festival.

Dr. Alex’s Fulbright-Nehru research in the US is a continuation of his research work in India that focuses on identifying ecological pedagogies in the humanities which will strengthen and systematize formal and informal teaching in the environmental humanities. These pedagogies will be structurally consolidated, evaluated and disseminated in a manner that is beneficial to the scholars and teachers, particularly in India. He also proposes to teach a course titled “Indian Films, Environmental Justice, and the Subaltern” at the Fairhaven College of Interdisciplinary Studies, Western Washington University.

Soumyabrata Chakraborty

Prof. Soumyabrata Chakraborty is serving as the registrar of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, a leading private university recognized as an “Institution of Eminence” by the Ministry of Education, Government of India. As an academic administrator he has also served as the founding registrar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Palakkad, and as the chief executive (Administration and Finance) of Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata. Prof. Chakraborty is actively involved in international collaborations and is a signatory of the institute in Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) executed with foreign universities.

As a civil engineer, Prof. Chakraborty has industrial and combat engineering experience having worked at Tata Steel and later in the Indian Army. He made significant contributions to counter insurgency operations and led infrastructure projects, including bridge and road construction in India and Bhutan, housing societies and habitat development. His recent international academic engagements include being a speaker at the international seminar on “Space, Time, Civilization” in Egypt (October, 2023), participating in the Annual Legal Meet of the Aditya Birla Group in Bangkok (December, 2023), and participating in the government’s ‘Study in India’ mission in Bangladesh (February 2024).