Vikas Vithal Shinde
Dr. Vikas Vithal Shinde is currently working as Professor in the Mechanical engineering Department at Vishwaniketan iMEET, Khalapur, affiliated to Mumbai University. I have completed Ph.D in Project Based Learning (PBL) from Aalborg University Denmark in the year 2014, under UNESCO chair in PBL. I am the first PhD in PBL from and across India, awarded by the UNESCO chair in PBL. I am also working as Director; Centre of excellence in Project based Learning. In this capacity, my objective is to create an ecosystem for PBL implementation across the country and to create the network of the PBL institutes. The vision behind is to enhance the curricular, and teaching-learning methodologies practiced in engineering education, to enable shift towards outcome based education.
I received prestigious “Erasmus Mundus Mobility for Life” scholarship from European Union from the year 2010-2014. I also work as Erasmus + project coordinator for Vishwaniketan. I have been nominated as Steering committee member representing Vishwaniketan, India for Erasmus+ project Capacity building in Higher education, having six consortium members including India, Denmark, Spain, Bulgaria, Thailand, and Pakistan. The project period is from Jan 2019- till Jan 2022.
I have more than 17 years of teaching experience and worked on various academic and administrative positions of the institute. Currently, I am guiding two PhD candidates for the research work. I have published 07 text books, one international e-thesis with international ISBN (total download count is more than 900) and more than 35 papers in national journal and six in international indexed database. I have two patents and in the past have been nominated for young scientist award (2005-2006) and received young innovator award (2015) for innovative contribution in hydrogen energy, and accolades for work in Hydrogen Energy (2015) from Prime minister’s office.
I have keen interest in the areas of Project based learning, Engineering Education, tribology and energy engineering. I have visited 17 countries and four international universities which include Aalborg University (Denmark), Coventry University (UK), MFU, Thailand, and Aalto University (Finland). In the recent past, I have been involved as reviewer of European Journal of Engineering Education, International Journal of Engineering Education and also acted as consultant to spread PBL in India. I have conducted more than 55 workshops on PBL, NAAC and various forms of Teaching-learning practices which also include workshops with international delegates from Denmark, Malaysia and USA. So far, I have trained more than 2700 teachers and worked with numerous students across India. I am passionate about teaching, research; and wilful to contribute extensively in the engineering education of the country.