Student Details

Bishal is an Architect and Urban Planner by profession and earned his Masters in Urban and Rural Planning from IIT Roorkee. His past work experience as a researcher in renowned think tanks, namely TERI and IIHS, included diverse studies and practice in urban policy research, infrastructure and land use planning, sustainable urban transport, cartographic and demographic studies. He also worked on regulatory frameworks and bye-laws related to buildings and urban areas, passive building design, green building consultancy, energy audits and capacity building. At the IITB-Monash Research Academy, his project titled 'Democratising neighbourhood mapping through design and creative collaboration of local communities in India' aims to study the intersections of democracy, mapping and community engagement in Indian societies to empower citizens in decision making through the language of maps. If maps are powerful tools in shaping realities, the research project shall enquire and study the shifts in agencies and power of map-making from map-makers to map-users. It shall further investigate the use of this expression of maps to act as drivers of change on the ground with the support of local authorities. In this research endeavour, he is being supervised by Prof. Venkatesh Rajamanickam and Dr. Arnab Jana from IIT Bombay and Dr. Ilya Fridman and Dr. Xavier Ho from Monash University. In his free time, Bishal likes to indulge in reading, gardening, photography, cinema, theatre and trekking/hiking in the forests and mountains.