Experience
EXPERIENCE (ACADEMIC RESEARCH)
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR | since FEB 2020
Research Areas & Activities: Design for Smart Sustainable Cities; Design for Education and Pedagogy; Design for Children with Disability & Development of Design Methods and Tools
Academic Responsibilities : Problem-based Learning through design, Systems thinking, Design Analysis, Design Evaluation, Introduction to Design (core & minor), Art and Aesthetics, Game Design
Associate to Editor-in-Chief, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (AIEDAM) Journal, Cambridge Publication
Administrative Roles: Departmental TimeTable Coordinator (2021-24), MDes EPD Curriculum Committee Member,
Research Projects & Industry Engagements: Erasmus+ funded project ‘Strengthening Problem-based Learning in South Asia’; DST funded “Boosting underwater tourism through 3D printing”, under TIH-IITG
POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATE | APR 2019 – FEB 2020
Work Package Lead and Program Management Team Member for Erasmus+ funded project, ‘Strengthening Problem-based Learning in South Asia’; aimed at Capacity-building in Higher Education through development of PBL best practices and MOOC, training of trainers in PBL methodologies, mentoring design of courses, and supporting regional networking.
Assistant to Editor-in-Chief, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (AIEDAM) Journal, Cambridge Publication
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE | JAN 2018 – APR 2019
Research Associate overlooking development of InDeaTe (version 3.0) into a web-tool for designers and design researchers, and as Mentor of design thinking workshops
Architect liaison for the design, project planning and execution of CEFC ‘Smart Factory’ – India’s first i4.0 facility, IISc and New CPDM department building, IISc.
Assistant to Editor-in-Chief, Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (AIEDAM) Journal, Cambridge Publication
EXPERIENCE (PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE)
ARCHITECT | JUN 2009 - DEC 2009
Architect and Brand designer under private practice in Bangalore, responsible for all activities from design to execution, of residences, playschools and restaurants, such as, – D’Costa Residence, “āshray”, Urban Café, MehaK Boutique.
JUNIOR ARCHITECT | SEPT 2007 - JUNE 2008
Architect and interior designer at ThirdSpace Studio, Bangalore (Mar – Jun 2008) responsible for all activities from design to execution, for prominent brands and clients - Titan showroom, Amanvana Resort and Spa, office of Amarchand and Mangaldas, and German Express.
Architect - Landscape and Heritage Conservation, at BeyondBUILT Ltd., Bangalore (Sept 2007 – Feb 2008) : Responsible for research and documentation, conceptualisation and presentation of design, detailing and site overview. Awarded ‘winner’ of design competition for a 36-acres public park developed by Amritsar Improvement Trust, Punjab.
Books
1. Chakrabarti, A., Singh, V., and Acharya, S., Editors, (2025). The Future of Design Education – Proceedings of InFuSED’23. Springer Nature Singapore. [e-book ISBN 978-981-97-7363-3] [April, 2025]
2. Acharya, S., (2023) Civil Engineering - Societal & Global Impact, AICTE-Technical Book for 4th Semester Engineering, All India Council for Technical Education. New Delhi. [ISBN 978-81-963773-7-3] [November, 2023]
Book Chapter
1. Acharya, S. (2025). The D in Design : What drives design student. In Chakrabarti, A., Singh, V., and Acharya, S., Editors, The Future of Design Education – Proceedings of InFuSED’23. Springer Nature Singapore. [e-book ISBN 978-981-97-7363-3] [April, 2025]
Journal Publications
1. Acharya, S., & Chakrabarti, A. (2020). A conceptual tool for environmentally benign design: Development and Evaluation of a “proof of concept”. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 34(1), 30-44. [January, 2020], doi:10.1017/S0890060419000313
2. Acharya, S., Ghadge, K., Ranjan, B., Devadula, S., & Chakrabarti, A. (2020). Evaluating the effectiveness of InDeaTe tool in supporting design for sustainability. Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing, 34(1), 45-54. [January, 2020], doi:10.1017/S0890060419000337
Conference Publications
1. Panchal, B., & Acharya, S. (2025). Design for Responsible and Resilient Society : Combatting Mental Health Stigma in Contemporary India through Education, Contact, and Protest-Based Approaches. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
2. Bhalchandra, S., & Acharya, S. (2025). Fostering resilience in Novice teachers : Design of a systemic approach towards reflection. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
3. Haleangadi, M., & Acharya, S. (2025). Design for Social Resilience: Accessible, Social Interactive approaches to imbibe behaviour change in young alcoholics. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
4. Meghana, A., Venkatesh, K., & Acharya, S. (2025). A novel music-based device for hand motor skill rehabilitation of children with cerebral palsy through ‘Multi-User Centric Codesign’. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
5. Vernekar, S.R., Venkatesh, K., & Acharya, S. (2025). Codesign of a Foot Health Monitoring solution for Special Needs Populations (Cerebral Palsy). In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
6. Venkatesh, K., & Acharya, S. (2025). Co-design for Special Needs: A comprehensive literature review and analysis of design approaches employed for assistive devices. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
7. Venkatesh, K., & Acharya, S. (2025). Connect to Collaborate: A prescriptive study on Multi-User-Centric Codesign and development of a checklist to aid novice designers. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
8. Bordoloi, T., Acharya, S., et al. (2025). Identifying contextually appropriate criteria and challenges of Sustainable Smart Cities of North-East India through Grounded Theory. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2025]
9. Ali, A. M., & Acharya, S. (2025). Appropriate Passive Design Strategies for achieving Thermal Comfort in School Classrooms in warm-humid climate. In International Conference on Research into Design Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. [January, 2025]
10. Acharya, S., Venkatesh, K., Prasanna, M., and Doshi, D., (accepted, 2025). Mastering the List of Requirements: A demand or a wish?. In International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED25), Dallas, USA, Proceedings of the Design Society. [August, 2025]
11. Acharya, S., and Rao, M., (accepted, 2025). Crafting the ‘dream’ Design Brief : Smells like Team spirit. In International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED25), Dallas, USA, Proceedings of the Design Society. [August, 2025]
12. Venkatesh, K., Acharya, S., Allen, J.K., and Mistree, F. (accepted, 2025). Towards a Theory Driven Foundational Model for Design: Rethinking Requirement Elicitation for Special Needs. In ASME 2025 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences & Computers and Information in Engineering Conference (IDETC/CIE2025) ASME [August, 2025]
13. Pramanik, S., Pabbathi, S., & Acharya, S. (2024). Exploring gesture generation for smartwatches: is user elicitation enough? In Proceedings of the Design Society, 4, 1045-1054. 18th International Design Conference (DESIGN2024), Dubrovnik, Croatia. [May, 2024]
14. Acharya, S. (2024). Design for the real world: a problem-based learning approach. Proceedings of the Design Society, 4, 2775-2784. 18th International Design Conference (DESIGN2024), Dubrovnik, Croatia. [May, 2024]
15. Bordoloi, T., & Acharya, S. (2023). Toward Health, Hygiene, and Safety—A Design Intervention for Accessible and Inclusive Toilets in India. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 253-266). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. [January, 2023]
16. Bordoloi, T., & Acharya, S. (2023). A Systematic Literature Review on Sustainable Smart City Planning to Strategize Design for North-East India. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 1147-1158). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore [January, 2023]
17. Ali, A. M., & Acharya, S. (2023). An Alternative Window Design Solution for Naturally Ventilated Educational Building. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 267-277). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. [January, 2023]
18. Ali, A. M., & Acharya, S. (2023). Understanding Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) of Naturally Ventilated Educational Buildings—A Systematic Literature Review. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 279-291). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. [January, 2023]
19. Jurelionis, A., Stankeviciute, G., Dhital, A., van Andel, E., Sundman, J., Stasiuliene, L., Acharya, S., Subra, R., (2023). Exploring the impact of Problem-based learning on student learning outcomes: Findings from the PBL South Asia project. In Proceedings of SEFI Annual Conference 2023 on Engineering Education for Sustainability, Dublin. [September, 2023]
20. Venkatesh, K., and Acharya, S., (2023). ‘indriya’ - Participatory design of a multi-sensory learning aid for children with communication disorder. In International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED23), France, Proceedings of the Design Society, 3, 9-18. [July, 2023]
21. Venkatesh, K., and Acharya, S. (2023). From an individual to the institute: A case of ‘Multi-user Centric Codesign’ approach in designing solutions for children with special needs in resource-constraint settings. In Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE23), Spain. [September, 2023]
22. Acharya, S., Bhatt, A.N., and Chakrabarti, A., (2023). Problem based Learning through Design Thinking to strengthen education in South Asia. In Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering and Product Design Education (E&PDE23), Spain. [September, 2023]
23. Karia, D., Shah, K., Venkatesh, K., Acharya, S. and Arora, M., (2022). A Comparative Analysis of the Engineering Design and Lean Start-Up Innovation Methodologies. In Proceedings of the Design Society: 17th International Design Conference (pp. 31 -40) [May, 2022]
24. Bhatt, A.N., Acharya, S. and Chakrabarti, A. (2021). Extended Taxonomy of Design and Innovation Games to Identify Perspectives of Development and Evaluation. In Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design ( Vol.1, pp.1547-1556) Cambridge University Press. [May, 2021]
25. Acharya, S., Bhatt, A.N., Chakrabarti, A., Delhi, V.S.K., Diehl, J.C., Mota, N.J., Jurelionis, A., and Subra, R. (2021). Design Thinking as a strategy to inculcate Problem-based Learning (PBL) in undergraduate education across South Asian Universities. In Proceedings of International Conference on Research into Design. Springer, Singapore. [January, 2021]
26. Acharya, S., Bhatt, A.N., Chakrabarti, A., Delhi, V.S.K., Diehl, J.C., van Andel, E., Jurelionis, A., Stasiuliene, L., De Jussilainen Costa, L., and Subra, R. (2021). Problem-based Learning (PBL) in undergraduate education : Design Thinking to Re-design Courses. In Proceedings of International Conference on Research into Design. Springer, Singapore. [January, 2021]
27. Acharya, S., Bhatt, A. N., Chakrabarti, A., & Nagai, Y. (2019). Fostering creativity in design-An empirical study on improvement of requirement-satisfaction with introduction of InDeaTe tool. In Proceedings of the Design Society: International Conference on Engineering Design (Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 3631-3640). Cambridge University Press. doi : 10.1017/dsi.2019.370 [January, 2019]
28. Acharya, S., & Chakrabarti, A. (2019). ‘ConcepTe’: Supporting Environmentally Benign Design DecisionMaking at Conceptual Stage. In International Conference on Research into Design : Research into Design for a Connected World (pp. 335-344). Springer, Singapore. doi : 10.1007/978-981-13-5974-3_29 [January, 2019]
29. Acharya, S., Chatty, T., Ranjan, B. S. C., Ghadge, K., Bharath, P. A., & Chakrabarti, A. (2018). InDeaTe 3.0: An Ontology based, generic design process guidance web-tool. In DS 92: Proceedings of the DESIGN 2018 15th International Design Conference (pp. 137-148). [May, 2018]
30. Uchil, P., Ghadge, K., Acharya, S., Bhinge, R., Robinson, S., Dornfeld, D., & Chakrabarti, A. (2017). Supporting manufacturing system design: a case study on application of InDeaTe design tool for a smart manufacturing system design. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 325-335). Springer, Singapore. [January, 2017]
31. Chakrabarti, A., Acharya, S., Ranjan, B. S. C., Devadula, S., Ghadge, K., Madhusudanan, N., ... & Rachuri, S. (2017). InDeaTe—A Computer-Based Platform with a Systematic Design Template and a Database of Methods and Tools. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 277-289). Springer, Singapore. [January, 2017]
32. Acharya, S., Ghadge, K., Uchil, P., Flynn, C. D., Johnson, A. J., Squier, M. N., ... & Rachuri, S. (2017). Supporting sustainable service-system design: a case study on green-roof design with InDeaTe template and tool at syracuse, New York. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 19-33). Springer, Singapore. [January, 2017]
33. Acharya, S., Ghadge, K., Langfitt, Q. M., Pezeshki, C., Ameta, G., Rachuri, S., & Chakrabarti, A. (2017). Supporting sustainable product design: a case study with InDeaTe tool and template at Washington State University, Pullman, WA. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 209-224). Springer, Singapore. [January, 2017]
34. Acharya, S., & Chakrabarti, A. (2017). Supporting environmentally-benign design: environmental impact estimation and uncertainty categories with respect to life cycle assessment in conceptual design. In International Conference on Research into Design (pp. 3-18). Springer, Singapore. [January, 2017]
35. Acharya, S., Chakrabarti, A. (2015) Supporting Environmentally-benign Design : Elucidating Environmental Impact propagation in Conceptual Design Phase through SAPPhIRE Model of causality. In International Conference on Engineering Design, Milan, Italy. (pp.139-150) [July, 2015]
