Good day, Dr. Inguva Sharath Chandra. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Yes, Sir, I'm I'm ready for the interview.

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

Uh, as myself, I'm Doctor Sharachandra Engua have started my career, uh, uh, in the year 2008 working as an assistant professor in one of those affiliated colleges of uh Jawlan Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, which is a professional university for engineering.

Started my journey by with my classroom teaching and laboratory exercises, laboratory delivery and then assessments and through small research. In the year 2013 I have registered for my doctoral research and I've completed my doctoral journey in the year 2020 where I have been awarded the degree.

For my work on FPGA implementation of.

Low power and high speed chordic and during this particular journey I was elevated from Assistant professor to Associate professor and I have also handled many administrative roles like head of the department and now I am being considered as an in charge for the Dean, academics and planning. At my current workplace that is Madhuri Engineering College.

Which is an autonomous engineering college where my responsibilities include from day-to-day teaching activities and laboratory preparations, as well as it also handles classroom and curriculum planning.

The way that teachers have check the industry or check the teaching preparedness of the junior faculty, and I also evaluate the.

Uh, papers, assessments, uh, uh, through grading and uh, I've also been uh, as uh.

Assigned with the works related to accreditations like NBA and NAC and I've been continuously supporting in accreditation works related to the autonomous related to the institution. And I've also engaged in many kinds of professional activities like professional societies there I'm the member of.

Prestigious professional bodies like I Triple E IET and ISTE in the case of I Triple EI, also work as a treasurer for the.

Past two years of I AAA Signal Processing Society of Hyderabad section and now I have been elevated as a Vice chair for the same section chapter and I've also been the executive committee members in IED and is T where I also engage in promoting technical activities related to the electronics and communication engineering for the benefit of the students and the. Faculty as well as some of those peer peer reviewed.

Uh, researchers as well as sometimes, uh, those who are working with industry also. In this way, I try to update myself in establishing the, uh, relationship between, uh, uh, how this teaching has to be improved such that it will address the industry readiness, uh, so that the students will be competent for attending their interviews and.

Be successful in their interviews.

And I also tried to update myself in equipping myself with some skills that.

Improves my teaching.

And try to be updated with all those cutting edge skills which should be required in today's world so that I can engage the students for a year long or a semester long coursework. That's all about my professional journey. It has been around 17 years and I've seen various phases where starting from the teaching and then elevated as some kind of administrative roles.

Where I have also dealt with different kinds of roles, such as where I try to administer the project works related to the project works and also I try to actually deal with many kinds of other works related to accreditation as well, which includes both student as well as institutional support and then.

I have also published many kinds of research papers in journals, international journals as well as international conferences like I triple E conferences. I have published around 18 papers in international peer reviewed international journals where my h-index is now around 86 and my citation count is 86 and my h-index is around 6.

Uh, and IE10 indexes around UH-4 as per the Google Scholar, uh, reviews And uh, uh, I have been, uh, registered in all those, uh, indexing, uh, uh.

Websites like Web of Science, Clarivate Analytics as well as Orchard ID as well as.

The Google ID and the scupus IDs OK and I have always trying to improve my research and my.

A PhD topic was also related to development of low power and high speed CORDY algorithm where CORDIC might be a conventional CORDIC algorithm. But however my methodologies try to bridge the gap between the current day needs of addressing challenges like power optimization and latency. That's all about my professional journey and I try to oversee that.

Foresee that I I continue with progress in my professional journey for the coming years too.

Thank you, Professor, for providing a detailed overview of your professional journey, research contributions, and administrative responsibilities. Allow me to focus specifically on validating your competencies for this role. Given the scope of the position as outlined, let's begin evaluating your expertise and teaching philosophy to ensure a comprehensive assessment. You mentioned your contribution to teaching theory and laboratory courses. Can you explain an instance where you introduced modifications to a laboratory curriculum to address an industry-relevant need?

Definitely.

Since I have been teaching a course like Digital Signal Processing which is also associated with a laboratory sessions. During the past 10 years, Digital signal processing coursework was not changed much. They where the students will be reading or will be studying about the concepts related to basic signal processing algorithms like.

DFTS and FFTS and there after there will be, uh, studying the design of uh, IAR and FIR filters and then multirate signal processing systems. During this journey, they were all in most of the curriculums that I see over the entire country. They followed the simulation practices where this particular experiments are just simulated using.

Tools like MATLAB or open source tools like.

Some of those open source tools equivalent to this MATLAB I I felt that there should be some kind of hardware implementation and therefore we have integrated this DSP laboratory course not only simulating over MATLAB, we also have extensively used this DSP processor implementations like the high end TMS 32067 environments where we have. Equipped the students of not only having this software.

Design methodology, but they will also have some experience on hardware implementations and thereafter we have also given some exposure to O map processors like industry relevant processes and nowadays I have also integrated these kind of.

Laboratory sessions with something related to open-ended environments, where we do have some kind of virtual lab environment where the students can perform those experiments.

And understand the criticality and understand the need for doing those experiments using virtual lab environment, which is freely available over the Internet. And this was blended into their curriculum and they were able to actually solve those particular MATLAB programs or any other programming on their own. They, they were equipped with these kind of skills.

I try to just, uh, not only teach the theory, I try to blend my, uh, theory topics and prepare my lesson plans such that the students are engaged over a, a 40 hour, uh, uh, course schedule such that every topic must be aligned with the industry niche. And some of those applications, which really make them interesting to study and pursue this particular coursework. And, uh, always I try to implement some of those effective teaching methodologies like flipward class.

The skill set was improved through this laboratory environment and in the classrooms also.

Uh, I tried to engage the students so that, uh, they will have a real world experience and why they should learn a particular course and how that can be aligned with this industry niche. These are, uh, specifically explained and try to, uh, this is not only, uh, set as a theoretical perspective, but however, this was clearly blended into their, uh, uh, day-to-day lesson activities like classroom activities such that they are engaged and they are there, There is some kind of an outcome where.

Technical quizzes are sometimes using mentimeter or some another effective teaching methodology, open-ended tools that are available on the Internet and.

This student centric approach where it is a core need of those OB philosophy. Therefore, I strongly believe in these methodologies so that the students are engaged and I I try to see myself always for the betterment where my I can try to engage the students with my better planning related to the lesson plans or any other things.

Understood, Professor. Your approach to transforming the Digital Signal Processing curriculum by blending theoretical learning with practical, hardware-based applications like DSP processors and virtual labs is commendable. Clearly, you prioritize aligning academic content with industry relevance. A related question: How do you assess whether such changes have successfully enhanced student learning outcomes or their industry readiness?

Uh, definitely, uh, we try to, uh, not only assess the students based upon, uh, the semester and, uh, uh, examinations, external lab theory examinations, but however, we also try to evaluate their performance based upon the mini projects that they do and how they have better utilized these kind of, uh, uh, concepts that what they have learned through this particular laboratory sessions. And I try to evaluate based upon how.

Are actually trying to implement or try to understand this particular theoretical concepts and trying to convert their.

Conceptual understanding into some technical publications and presentations in conferences and I also strongly support them and equip them with this presentation skills and how to write a paper about the concept that they have already studied and sometimes I also try to see that whether they were able to actually.

Whether they were able to grab some kind of internships or not. And this the source of internships where the students will be able to find those internships was also provided from my, from my side. And whether they were able to successfully grab those internships or not. This is how this I, I evaluate whether we have really understood the concepts through this laboratory. Sessions that what where we are trying to integrate them not only with this theoretical simulations and all, but by practical implementations.

Get some kind of internships based upon their. Already studied concepts.

And at the end of the day.

And at the end of the day, whether they have been employed or not, this this is what whether they have been employed with the same relevant skills or not, this makes the sense actually.

Thank you, Professor. It's clear that you emphasize practical applications and track outcomes like technical publications, internships, and employment to measure the impact of your curriculum enhancements. This holistic approach demonstrates your commitment to both academic rigor and industry readiness. Let’s now shift focus. Can you elaborate on your experience guiding student projects and research activities? Specifically, how do you ensure the quality and relevance of these projects to both academic goals and real-world applications?

Uh, uh, during the early phase of my career, I was, uh, just, uh, trying to, uh, motivate the students, uh, through implementation of some of those, uh, uh, concepts that, that what they have already studied in the, uh, classes and how they are implementing it through different kinds of simulators or some kind of a hardware, uh, in the case of simple microprocessor related. Experiments or something related to signal processing, whether they have implemented through MATLAB or.

Some hardware related to IoT or microcontroller boards, but there was a paradigm shift where I have realized that that that is that doesn't might not work with the advanced learners. Therefore I try to.

Industry or current research trends and try to understand the problems that really students can make a change. Therefore, I have come out with some approaches.

Learn about some of those.

Where try to realize some of those problems and try to introduce those problems to the students and develop or come up with an idea so that they can address those research problems. I have previously during my PhD tenure, I have given some of those problems related to my PhD work where I have been.

Efficient in handling the hardware efficiency and all I have asked.

The students to implement my PhD topics like LH, cardiac or something like that. The low power and I speed card for the things that what have what they have already studied like FFTS. They have implemented this my research problem, my research solutions to something that what they have studied and thereafter I have also seen where my students have implemented something related to the. Relevance.

That is in educational institutions where the need of the are some of those problems from their daily engagement. I have asked my students to work on simple concepts which might actually help in library management systems and similarly related to classroom attendance systems and all where recently our students have also worked on smart attendance systems where they take the images from the CCTV.

Audits and try to directly record the attendance of the attendance of the students on a daily basis. And they have used some kind of AI algorithms in actually trying to analyze those images that are being captured from the CCTV images and they try to directly convert those particular images into the attendance. Attendance systems where it marks the attendance and not only it marks the attendance but it evaluates over entire period.

Of the semester or something like that. And this work actually have been the hardware related to this particular work was also patented through a design patent. And it has also been granted similarly ideas like something related to library management system where it sorts out some of those books related titles based upon the color and sometimes based upon the relevance of the number of books available. And whether?

That library management system can recognize how many number of volumes are still available and how many of they have been already students landed those particular books and all. Similarly, I have also worked on have guided the students to work on some AI based projects which can be blended into hardware. Something where I could see some of the problems in my college related parts where. They generally try to run some hardware.

Mechanically and where there there needs a manual intervention nowadays we have also developed a project through a weed removal system based upon the colour identification they it tries to identify a autonomous Rover which actually tries to identify the weights based upon the colour and it cuts off or chops off those weeds without manual intervention and say. These kind of projects have really creates created some kind of enthusiasm.

And all the students, those who generally publish or do some particular projects under me, they try to publish their work in the international conferences or try to participate in some kind of technical. Project competitions or ideas where many of our students already grabbed some kind of project presentations and recently held in Amrita Vishwajevitam in Coimbatore, they have also secured a second place for.

Doing a particular work on this kind of.

Autonomous Rover which actually chops off those weeds and all. Therefore I I nowadays try to work on real world problems which makes really the project after which they pursue. They will try to realize the use of those things and how they are related to the society and thereby during this process they are also trying to learn what are the industry related softwares.

And how this industry is actually trying to address those research problems through their products and all. Therefore, this is a process that I generally try to pursue whenever I'm working with my students at UG levels. Since I doesn't have any scope to work with ME students or research scholars under PhD, I confined my work to smallest problems which might actually lead them to study about some of those concepts related to industry and make them industry ready.

Thank you, Professor. Your approach to guiding projects showcases a commendable balance between theoretical grounding, practical application, and relevance to real-world problems. The examples you've provided, from AI-based smart attendance systems to autonomous weed removers, reflect an innovative mindset and an ability to inspire students to engage deeply with contemporary challenges. Furthermore, your emphasis on driving students to publish or compete in technical forums underscores your commitment to their holistic development. Let us now turn to your research contributions. You’ve highlighted your focus on low-power, high-speed CORDIC algorithms and related innovations. Could you briefly elaborate on the methodologies you adopted in your PhD that helped bridge gaps in power optimization and latency challenges?

Definitely. Actually my research work in PhD has not just started. Just like a a problem that actually fetches my PhD degree, I have continued with my.

Master's thesis where I have found out that a simple.

Adder. Something like a something a CSLA adder was implemented through.

Uh, binary extraction techniques where I have, uh, made that particular CLA adder more work more efficiently through a high speed. That particular work has been extended to a conventional quality algorithm where it automates the process, replacing something that is required such as LUTS or something like that. My work actually focused on. Implementation of low power and high speed optimization techniques. Where I have used something related to canonical.

CSD techniques as well as HCUB algorithms where? They try to actually overcome some problems related to CSD techniques, actually try to overcome on non zero element but it actually tries to search for a single non zero element. Whereas hub algorithms that is heuristic cumulative benefit algorithms which actually used multiple.

Non 0 optimization techniques, Non-zero element optimization techniques where they try to decrease the power, power required power.

Uh, actually cardiac actually works on automating, uh, for finding out different kinds of hyperbolic, uh, as well as trigonometric functions, which they, which can actually work, uh, uh, on a, uh, automatically. Uh, it automates, uh, things based upon, in comparison, when, whenever we try to look for many of the DSP algorithms actually try to look for some LEDs instead of Luts, uh, this cardi can replace those Luts and, uh, my particular techniques.

Sufficient techniques where I have used this CSD canonical system design as well as those hedge cup algorithms really try to optimize and I have implemented this particular design on different kinds of FPGA boards where my frequency was improved from 77% to 83 percent or different kinds of FPGA boards and I've also implemented.

My design to realistic problems like, uh, QPSK modulation techniques and FFT architectures where I was, uh, able to show that there was, uh, some kind of, uh, power optimization as well as, uh, uh, area optimization. And sometimes the speed of those particular algorithms was also improved or a larger scale, Uh, that's all and from my side.

Thank you, Professor. Your work on optimizing low-power, high-speed CORDIC algorithms and integrating advanced methodologies like CSD and HCUB algorithms demonstrates a profound understanding of both theoretical foundations and practical implementation. It's particularly noteworthy how you validated your designs on FPGA boards and demonstrated improvements in metrics like frequency, power consumption, and speed when applied to real-world use cases like QPSK modulation and FFT architectures. To delve deeper into the pedagogical side, can you share your teaching philosophy and how it aligns with fostering both academic growth and practical competencies in students?

Our scheduled time for the interview is now up. Before we conclude, do you have any questions related to the role or the company?

I would like to just know what are the expectations when I just if at all I have been selected and also I try to understand the vids requirement whenever they are selecting actually a professor a a particular competent one who is applying for a professor role. Can you just answer this?

Yes, yes, I'm, I'm still there. And based upon the information that you have provided and based upon the interaction that we had for the over past half an hour or so, how do you actually rate my strengths and weaknesses?

Certainly, Professor. Based on the job details provided, the expectations for someone in the Professor role include: 1. **Teaching Excellence**: Delivering high-quality instruction in both theory and laboratory courses, ensuring students are equipped with foundational knowledge as well as practical, industry-relevant skills. 2. **Research Contributions**: Publishing impactful papers in reputed international journals, securing research funding, and potentially engaging in consultancy work or collaborations with the industry. 3. **Mentorship and Guidance**: Guiding undergraduate and postgraduate students in their projects and research activities. This extends to helping them prepare for internships, employment, and further studies. 4. **Departmental Contributions**: Participating in curriculum development, academic administration, accreditation processes such as NBA and NAAC, and executing ideas to improve the teaching and evaluation process. 5. **Industry Collaboration and R&D**: Contributing to bridging academia and industry by promoting partnerships, incorporating real-world problems into the curriculum, and ensuring students are industry-ready. 6. **Community and Leadership**: Engaging with professional bodies, organizing technical activities, and possibly leading academic committees to foster intellectual and professional growth within the institution. The institution is likely looking for someone with not only strong academic and research credentials but also a clear ability to inspire students, lead initiatives, build collaborations, and align their expertise with emerging educational and technological needs. If selected, fulfilling these expectations would likely position you as a key figure in the institution’s academic and professional ecosystem. Do you need any further clarification on these?

Hello, are you there?

Thank you.

Yup.

Before proceeding further, would you like to ask anything else or shall we conclude the interview?

No, uh, nothing else. Thank you.