Jayendran: Professional

Prof. Jayendran Venkateswaran (JV) is an Institute Chair Professor of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research at IIT Bombay, where he has been a faculty since 2005.   His current research and teaching interests are in systems thinking, system dynamics, agent based modeling & simulation, discrete-event simulation, supply chain & sustainability and OR for development. Over the years, he has worked with various multi-national industries such as General Mills, RBI, Hindalco, ICICI, John Deere, Patni Computers, etc, helping them solve their problems using sound OR methods. He loves tinkering with Python, R and other open source tools. He is passionate about popularising Operations Research, Simulation and Systems Thinking to help further the understanding of complex socio-economic problems. He has several publications in leading journals and conferences to his credit.  He has guided 9 doctoral students and 40+ graduate (Masters’) students. He is also currently the Head of IEOR department.

He co-led the Solar Urja through Localisation for Sustainability (SoULS) initiative at IIT Bombay (www.soulsiitb.in) which involves a range of activities towards decentralised renewable (solar) energy access, including skilling, technology development, technology diffusion, adoption & sustainability, rural entrepreneurship & small industries development, etc.  Through SoULS, he is also working with several development agencies (State/ NGOs/ etc), and rural communities.  The initiative has received  several awards including the IEEE Empower a Billion Lives Global Award in 2019.  

He currently serves as the Secretary of the Operations Research Society of India (ORSI)- Mumbai Chapter, is a member of the System Dynamics Society and the Society of Operations Management.  He has organised two international conferences in 2012 and 2018. 

Dr. Jayendran completed his Doctorate in Systems & Industrial Engineering, and Masters in Systems Engineering, both from the University of Arizona, Tucson in 2005 and 2002 respectively.  He obtained his bachelor’s degree, MSc (Tech) in Engineering Technology from the premier undergraduate institute in India, Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, in 2000.