Jobs
Job openings for various research, technical, and administrative positions are announced periodically on the IIT Bombay Development and Relations Foundation (IITB DRF) website and/or the center’s website and LinkedIn page.
July 2, 2026
Current Openings: Project Research Associate/Scientist (Multiple Roles)
Fellowships Available for New Students
Several fellowships available for PhD in 2026-27. Please see below for details.
FedEx ALFA Center-supported PhD Fellowship Projects for the December 2026–27 Academic Session
| Federated Prognostics of Mobility Batteries for Enhanced EV Fleet Management (Prof. Vibhor Pandhare, Mechanical Engineering) |
| This research addresses the critical need for accurate battery health forecasting in the rapidly expanding EV fleet market, where privacy concerns and data silos currently hinder the development of robust prognostic models. While centralized data-driven approaches are the current standard, they suffer from significant communication overhead and struggle to generalize across diverse driving environments and battery chemistries without compromising proprietary operator data. To overcome these barriers, this project will aim to propose Federated Learning mechanisms that enable collaborative model training across distributed fleets without the exchange of raw sensor data. The study will specifically investigate how personalized aggregation using hybrid data-driven + physics-informed approaches can manage fleet heterogeneity, whether asynchronous architectures can mitigate connectivity issues in mobile environments, and the extent to which federated transfer learning can resolve “cold-start” challenges for new vehicles. By decentralizing the learning process, this work will aim to enhance the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) predictions of mobility batteries, ultimately optimizing fleet maintenance schedules and total cost of ownership. For more detail on admission process, click here |
| Trusted Electronic Bills of Lading (e‑BL) for India’s Multimodal Logistics Networks (Prof. Archak Mittal, Civil Engineering) |
| Bills of lading remain heavily paper-based in India, creating delays, manual errors, fraud risks, and poor visibility across ports, inland terminals, and road legs of multimodal freight. Recent legal and policy moves towards recognizing electronic trade documents and electronic bills of lading (e‑BL) now create an opportunity to design India-specific digital infrastructure that is interoperable, secure, and scalable for logistics stakeholders. This project aims to develop and pilot a standards-based e‑BL framework tailored to Indian exporters, freight forwarders, carriers, banks, and customs, with emphasis on interoperability with global MLETR-aligned platforms and emerging standards such as ISO 5909. The research will: (i) map current document and data flows for selected export–import corridors, (ii) specify a canonical data model and APIs for e‑BL exchange across trucking, rail, and maritime actors, and (iii) prototype a reference implementation with strong identity, consent, and audit trails leveraging existing trade and logistics systems. Using real shipment pilots, the study will quantify impacts on cycle time, exception rates, financing timelines, and compliance, and identify regulatory and operational enablers for nationwide scale-up, directly supporting more efficient, transparent, and resilient logistics in India. For more detail on admission process, click here |
| Human brain behind the delivery network: Neural Responses to Feedback and Decision Conflict in Logistics Systems (Prof. Rashmi Gupta, Humanities & Social Sciences) |
| With the increasing optimization of logistics systems through algorithms and automation – role of human decision-makers remains critical in managing uncertainty, resolving conflicts, and responding to operational feedback in real time. However, the current logistics research widely assumes cognitively stable decision-makers and overlooks how workers’ emotional and mental health states may shape operational performance. This project aims for an investigation on the neural mechanisms modulated by depressive symptom-severity highlighting underlying emotional feedback processing and cognitive control during logistics decision making. Using electroencephalography(EEG), the study will examine brain responses while participants engage in simulated last-mile delivery and routing tasks involving time pressure, conflicting priorities, and operational feedback such as delivery delays or negative customer-outcomes. Validated clinical scales would be deployed to assess individual differences in depressive symptoms and they will be linked to neural markers of emotional and cognitive processing including feedback-related negativity, error-related negativity, frontal midline theta, and the late positive potential. By integrating affective neuroscience with logistics decision-making, the project aims to uncover how emotional vulnerability influences responses to operational stress, negative feedback. The findings could guide design of human-centered logistics systems, decision-support tools, training-protocols, and workplace interventions that account for cognitive emotional variability in high-pressure logistics environments. For more detail on admission process, click here |
| Environmental Implications of Transportation and Logistics (Prof. Omkar D. Palsule, SJMSoM) |
| Logistics service providers, such as FedEx, DTDC, and Amazon, operate large transportation and logistics networks, moving millions of packages daily by air, ground, and sea. This extensive scale of operations generates significant environmental impacts that require strategic attention and systemic operational intervention. We aim to analyze how logistics service providers’ transportation modes, logistics network design, and operational practices collectively shape environmental outcomes, ultimately informing evidence-based strategies for sustainable logistics transformation in the express delivery industry. We aim to develop operational and strategic frameworks at the interface of logistics and the environment. For more detail on admission process, click here |
| Assessment of national-level freight road corridors (Prof. Gopal R. Patil, Civil Engineering) |
| India is a huge country with a big network of National Highways, Expressways, and State Highways. The road sections on these roads vary significantly with reference, number of lanes, quality of pavement, traffic condition, and geometry. For a transporter, typically, there are alternative routes and modes available. Realistic assessment of these alternatives is of great importance to make an optimal choice. However, it is not possible for an individual transport company to analyze the entire road network. We plan to use field data and road toll data to assess different road sections. It is proposed to develop an index to indicate the efficiency of a given road section. This will be very beneficial to logistics and transport companies to make optimal decisions related to routes and modes of transport. For more detail on admission process, click here |
Current Students of IIT Bombay
Current PhD and MTech students of IIT Bombay can apply for FedEx Fellowships available through the center. Please see the details of PhD and MTech fellowships.
Faculty
Interested faculty from within IIT Bombay and other institutes can contact the Center-in-Charge for possible avenues of participating in the center activities.