A workshop for aspirants to design PhD programme in IDC

IDC, IIT Bombay is happy to announce a one-day workshop on March 8, 2014 for aspiring PhD candidates.

This workshop will be conducted by faculty members as well as by current and past PhD students in IDC. The faculty members will talk about their broad areas of interests. You could then decide if you would like to do a PhD in these or related areas. There will be opportunities to explore specific areas of mutual interest and developing a proposal for a PhD.

Following faculty members have confirmed their participation so far:

• Girish Dalvi (form, shape and behaviours in interactive interfaces, culture sensitive design, type design and typography, physical / embedded / frugal / computing)
• Anirudha Joshi (human-computer interaction, design for people with less education, text input in Indic scripts, integrating interaction design with software engineering, metrics)
• Nishant Sharma (vehicle design)
• BK Chakravarthy (product design, innovation)
• Nina Sabnani (illustration, visual narratives, animation studies, visual ethnography, storytelling)
• GG Ray (ergonomics related to automobiles, products, workstations)
• Raja Mohanty (visual arts, aesthetics, narratives and storytelling, ceramics)
• Alka Hingorani (visual ethnography, story and narrative)
• GV Sreekumar (typography, typeface design, information design, magazine design)
• Pramod Khambete (pattern languages, user experience, service experience design, human-computer interaction)

The workshop will also be an opportunity to interact with current and past PhD students at IDC.

9:00 to 10:00 hrs	Keynote: Prof. Milind Malshe
10:30 to 11:00 hrs	Panel: Difference between design, design research and research
11:00 to 11:45 hrs	How to prepare a PhD Proposal Prof. Nina Sabnani
11:45 to 12:30 hrs	PhD Process Prof. Girish Dalvi
12:30 to 14:00 hrs	Lunch + Informal interaction with current PhD students
14:00 to 15:15 hrs	Introduction to research areas Prof. Girish Dalvi, Prof. Anirudha Joshi, Prof. Nishant Sharma, Prof. BK Chakravarthy, Prof. Nina Sabnani, Prof. GG Ray, Prof. Raja Mohanty, Prof. Alka Hingorani, Prof. GV Sreekumar, Prof. Pramod Khambete;
15:30 to 17:00 hrs	Breakout sessions Dicusssions with individual faculty members

This workshop is for those who are considering to apply to the PhD programme at IDC. Perhaps you are a practising designer who has developed a deep understanding about design and are interested in formalising your body of work. May be you invented new methods, tools or techniques and want evaluate them rigorously.

You may be interested to explore specific design issues — design pedagogy or design history perhaps. Or you are generally interested in design research, but are in search for a topic. Or you are just not sure if you should take a plunge into a 4–5 year commitment for a PhD. If it sounds like you are one or more of the above, this workshop will help. It is meant for those who are interested in design research, want to do a PhD, but need help to develop a concrete PhD proposal.

To participate, please mail a 2 — page statement of purpose giving information about your academic and professional background, your area of design research interest, and why you are interested to do a PhD, by February 14, 2014 to anirudha[at the rate]iitb.ac.in. Applicants will be shortlisted based on this SoP and intimated by February 24, 2014.

Lunch, tea and snacks will be provided during the workshop. The participants will need to pay Rs. 500 at the time of registration towards expenses. Participants will have to make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation.

The PhD programme at IDC was launched in 2005. In a short period, it has become very popular. Each year, about 100 researchers apply to IDC’s PhD programme. Already, 10 researchers have completed their PhDs. Another 40 researchers are currently enrolled in the programme; perhaps the largest number of design PhD students anywhere in the world. Research in IDC happens on a wide range of topics. For more about IDC’s research, please visit here or get in touch with the coordinator of the PhD programme Prof. Nina Sabnani (ninamsabnani[at the rate]iitb.ac.in).